Senate passes tobacco control, equipment leasing bills

The Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that seeks to regulate and control the production, manufacture, sale, advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products in Nigeria.
Similarly, the upper chamber approved a bill that aims at regulating the business of leasing and bringing sanity and certainty into the practice of leasing as well as ushering a regulatory regime that protects both the users and the owners or financiers.
The passage of the tobacco bill, titled ‘A Bill for an Act to Repeal the Tobacco (Control) Act,1990 and to Enact the National Tobacco Control Bill’, 2012, came after a clause-by-clause consideration by senators at plenary.
Presenting the bill for deliberation on behalf of its sponsor and chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Ifeanyi Okowa, a member of the committee, Chris Ngige (Anambra South), in a lead paper, said the fundamental objectives of the bill was to repeal the current Tobacco Smoking (Control) Act, which he noted, was enacted in 1990.
He said the existing Tobacco Act was inadequate and therefore there was the need to enact the National Tobacco Control Act that was adequate in ensuring the protection of the present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic effects of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke, stating the dangers of tobacco and limiting its use without unduly interfering with civil rights and liberties.