The Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has flagged off its #smokefreenollywood campaign targeted at identifying and working with entertainment stakeholders on the enforcement of the ban on Tobacco Advertising Promotions and Sponsorships (TAPS) in movies and music videos.
The flag-off held on November 21 in Lagos was attended by key entertainment stakeholders including gospel musician Lanre Teriba and former general manager of Rhythm FM Lagos Jide Alabi.
The event featured the screening of a collage of smoking scenes in recent Nigerian movies, stage performance by Lanre Teriba, as well as dance and picture sessions.
Aside presenting the entertainment stakeholders advocacy materials including a factsheet on #smokefreenollywood, winner of the 2019 edition of the Tobacco Control Rap Challenge, Efemena Okugunni aka Reflex and first runner-up, Adeogun Yinka aka Zadok performed the ‘No to Tobacco’ rap song which was equally unveiled at the event.
Executive director of CAPPA Oluwafemi Akinbode in a speech at the event said: “At the center of our engagement today is the tobacco menace which the World Health Organisation (WHO) tells us, kills as much as six million people annually, and is projected to kill as much as 8 million people by the year 2030 if nothing is done about it.”
He said that in 2007 a screening of 10 randomly selected movies by tobacco control activists in Nigeria showed that the tobacco industry might have been using Nollywood to promote tobacco smoking.
According to him, the movies screened at the time were Million Dollar Sisters, Fatal Seduction, Battle for Battle, Holy warden, GL2, Virgin Heart, Games Angel Play, War Game, Living in Pain and My Own Share.
CAPPA recommended among others adult rating for films with smoking scenes, strong anti-smoking adverts before the start of films, stopping identification of tobacco brands in the background of any movie scene.
“Smoking scenes should be required to carry a rolling banner of text health warning,” Mr Akinbode said.
