ADVERTISEMENT
  • The Membership Club
  • PT Hausa
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
Monday, March 1, 2021
Premium Times Nigeria
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
Premium Times Nigeria
BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad
ADVERTISEMENT
Cigarette smoking

A tobacco smoker used to illustrate the story.

Tobacco-control advocates accuse BATN of enslavement of Nigerian farmers

byPremium Times
May 6, 2014
3 min read

“They work tirelessly daily and even conscript their children into tobacco farming”.

A coalition of tobacco-control advocates have accused the British American Tobacco Nigeria, BATN, of slave practices towards tobacco farmers in the country.

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN; Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC; National Tobacco Control Alliance, NTCA; and the Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, PIN; also claimed, Tuesday, that the tobacco company inflates the prices of the fertilizers it sells to the farmers.

E-mail enquiries to Dayo George, of BATN’s Nigeria Press Office, to respond to the claims have not been replied as at press time.

“The NPK fertilizer which the Ministry of Agriculture sells for N5,600 per bag is being re-bagged and sold to farmers in the tobacco growing communities for N7,100 and above,” Akinbode Oluwafemi, Director, Corporate Accountability, ERA/FoEN, told journalists in a press briefing in Lagos on Industry Monitoring Visits to Tobacco farms in Oyo State.

‘Slave trade era’

Periodically, tobacco companies in Nigeria engage in a public display of some tobacco growers whom they say have earned millions by cultivating the plant.

Last March, BATN stated that its farmers’ sales value has increased from about N224 million to N680 million, with tobacco farming supporting more than 20,000 livelihoods.

But the tobacco-control advocates, who visited some BATN tobacco farms in Oyo State recently, described such claims as a “sham.”

RelatedNews

New Report Shows Tobacco Industry Interfering in Nigerian Government Policies

Anti-tobacco groups urge government to start tobacco regulations implementation

UN Climate Action: Activists demand oil corporations pay for environmental damages

Nigerians urged to support implementation of tobacco control act

The groups likened BATN’s treatment of tobacco farmers to the slave trade era in which the victims remain in a “cycle of penury and unending servitude.”

“Not a single millionaire was found in Iseyin, Otu, Okaka, or Igbo Ijaiye communities,” the groups said in a joint statement.

“In fact, the farmers laughed off the millionaire farmers’ articles as hoax because most of them told us they want to quit tobacco farming but find it hard to because of the loans hanging on their necks which they must repay in form of tobacco leaves.

Dangote adbanner 728x90_2 (1)

“Because of this, they work tirelessly daily and even conscript their children into tobacco farming because the labour-intensive tobacco growing makes it practically impossible to delve into growing cassava, maize and other crops that can serve as alternatives to growing tobacco,” the advocates said.

The groups also accused BATN of using the face of local farmers to hold on to the Nigerian market while importing most of its tobacco leaves from outside Nigeria,

“We have long suspected that leaves sourced from Nigeria are negligible compared with the hype that BATN is involved in,” said Mr. Oluwafemi.

“To ensure its engagement with farmers remains hidden from public scrutiny, BATN has engaged instructors who are more like task masters whose role is to ensure the local farmers do not talk to journalists or anyone who comes to ask any question except on the instruction of the so-called instructor.

“The situation in farms is like the slave trade era when task farmers ensure the farmers only do the bidding of the colonial masters,” Mr. Oluwafemi added.

Seun Hunge, a tobacco-control advocate, said that tobacco farmers are gradually moving towards the hinterlands as very few tobacco farms were seen in the communities they visited.

ADVERTISEMENT

“But what struck me is that those that plant the tobacco say that they don’t have problems with the cattle-rearers because their cattle don’t eat tobacco leaves,” said Mr. Hunge of PIN.

“It got to me that something is wrong somewhere,” he added.

The groups demanded that the Nigerian government should investigate BATN’s “slave practices” towards the farmers as well as the alleged re-bagging and inflation of the prices of fertilizers sold to the farmers.

“The federal government should as a matter of urgency commission an enquiry into the volume of tobacco leaves utilized by BATN for cigarette production in its Ibadan plant, and the total quantity produced from farms in the country, with a view to ascertaining how much leaves the company imports.

“This is necessary to establish the true facts in order to check any undue waivers that BATN enjoys under the federal government import waiver schemes.”

The advocates also demanded that the Nigerian government should create a conducive environment for farmers in tobacco growing areas to explore alternatives to tobacco farming.

“This position stems from testimonies from the farmers that if government comes to their aid to help them repay their loans, they will gladly dump the tobacco business for food crops and other meaningful business.”

The groups also urged the quick passage of the National Tobacco Control Bill to safeguard the health of Nigerians and save Nigerian farmers from the cycle of poverty.

  • WhatsApp
  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • Telegram
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket

Support PREMIUM TIMES' journalism of integrity and credibility

Good journalism costs a lot of money. Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government.

For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour.

By contributing to PREMIUM TIMES, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all.

Donate


TEXT AD: To advertise here . Call Willie +2347088095401...


JOIN THE CONVERSATION

  • Disqus (0)
premiumtimes



PT Mag Campaign AD

Previous Post

Why I dumped PDP, Ex- Ekiti Governor, Segun Oni, says

Next Post

Chibok Girls: Group advocates passage of Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill

Premium Times

Premium Times

More News

WHO

How WHO is supporting Nigeria’s COVID-19 response – Official

March 1, 2021
RAMON OLORUNWA ABBAS, aka “Ray Hushpuppi,” [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Instagram account of Hushpuppi]

EXCLUSIVE: Hushpuppi hires former govt. lawyer as defence counsel

March 1, 2021
NNPC filling station

NNPC says no increase in fuel price in March

March 1, 2021
Okonjo-Iweala assumes office as WTO director-general. [PHOTO CREDIT: WTO Twitter handle]

PHOTOS: Okonjo-Iweala assumes office as WTO director-general

March 1, 2021
Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state and former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Yahaya Bello meets Obasanjo over insecurity- Official

March 1, 2021
Lafene hostel

Nigerian governor, former senator clash over Kagara abduction

March 1, 2021
Next Post

Chibok Girls: Group advocates passage of Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill

FMC Abeokuta Health workers begin indefinite strike

Discussion about this post

Search

#EndSARS: Latest Updates




Polaris Bank


JAIZ Ad


NITDA Ad





Glo Ad

Subscribe to News via Email

Enter your email address and receive notifications of news by email.

Join 1,626,465 other subscribers.

Advertisement






netherland biz school Advert

Zenith Advert
ADVERTISEMENT

Our Digital Network

  • PT Hausa
  • Election Centre
  • Human Trafficking Investigation
  • Centre for Investigative Journalism
  • National Conference
  • Press Attack Tracker
  • PT Academy
  • Dubawa
  • LeaksNG
  • Campus Reporter

Resources

  • Oil & Gas Facts
  • List of Universities in Nigeria
  • LIST: Federal Unity Colleges in Nigeria
  • NYSC Orientation Camps in Nigeria
  • Nigeria’s Federal/States’ Budgets since 2005
  • Malabu Scandal Thread
  • World Cup 2018
  • Panama Papers Game
  • Our Digital Network
  • About Us
  • Resources
  • Projects
  • Data & Infographics
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • Parliament Watch
    • AGAHRIN
  • Opinion
  • PT Hausa
  • The Membership Club
  • Dubawa
    • Dubawa NG
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Digital Store
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

Our website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.