CAPPA Report warns: Tobacco giants target Nigeria’s youth population with deadly e-Cigarettes
By Ishaya Ibrahim
A new report by Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) warns that e-cigarettes and other emerging nicotine products are flooding the Nigerian market in attractive packaging, delivering addictive and harmful doses that specifically target the country’s large youth population—over 60% of whom are under 30.
The 38-page report, titled “New Smoke Trap: New and Emerging Nicotine and Tobacco Products, Youth Exposure, and Regulatory Gaps in Nigeria”, was presented on Thursday in Lagos. It shows that electronic nicotine and non-nicotine delivery systems now dominate Nigeria’s nicotine market, with a total of 522 products recorded.
More worrisome, according to the report, is the growing addiction among Nigerian youths to these harmful products. “Field observations suggest a progression in consumption patterns among users, particularly young people,” the report stated.
The report also highlights the tactics used by the tobacco industry to hook young people. “They are packaged in bright, compact designs that resemble cosmetics or small electronic gadgets. They are also widely available in supermarkets, kiosks, nightlife venues, and online platforms,” it said.
The products are also affordable, priced between N5,000 and N60,000, which serves as a tactic to attract low- and middle-income consumers.
Mary-Ann Etiebet, Chief Executive Officer of Vital Strategies, praised CAPPA for the report, saying it revealed a pattern that is all too familiar and deeply troubling about the tobacco industry.
“The findings point to the tobacco industry’s continued efforts to recruit new victims to addiction, to sustain profits and replace the millions of consumers lost to disease and premature deaths every year,” she said.
CAPPA’s Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said the report is significant because it moves the discussion from speculation to documented evidence.
He noted that as regulatory scrutiny intensified globally and social stigma around smoking deepened, the tobacco industry recalibrated its strategy by diversifying its portfolio and rebranding addiction as innovation. What followed, he said, was the introduction of sophisticated lifestyle accessories aligned with modernity, technological progress, and personal choice.
He added: “These devices are sleek in design, flavoured in ways that appeal to youth sensibilities, and marketed through youth-populated digital ecosystems. Yet beneath the aesthetics and rhetorical reframing lies the same addictive substance that has anchored tobacco profits for over a century.
“Nicotine remains the central commodity, and its neurobiological impact, particularly on adolescents and young adults, is well documented, which makes the strategic targeting of youthful populations not an incidental marketing decision but a structural feature of a profit model that depends on recruiting new users as older consumers succumb to disease and death.”
Professor Olalekan Ayo-Yusuf, Director of the Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Research, pointed out that the tobacco industry exploits regulatory gaps, especially definitional gaps that allow these products to fall outside traditional tobacco control and medicinal nicotine frameworks.
“If these products are presented as cessation aids and safe or reduced-harm options, they should be tested and regulated as medicines by NAFDAC,” he said.
Prof. Ayo-Yusuf called for the regulation of nicotine, not just tobacco products, arguing that the delivery systems are framed as “technology, lifestyle accessories, or wellness tools” rather than drug-delivery systems—which, according to him, is what they are. He added: “They are also used to deliver cannabis.”
CAPPA’s Zikora Ibeh and Olamide Martins Ogunlade made presentations on the methodology adopted for the report.
