Environmental activist and anti-tobacco advocate, Akinbode Oluwafemi, says it is untrue that Shisha is safer than cigarette.

Addressing youths at a sensitisation programme organised by the Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance and the Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja on Wednesday, March 11, 2020, Oluwafemi noted that a session of Shisha is about a hundred sticks of cigarette.

“Those saying Shisha is safer than cigarette are being economical with the truth,” he said to an audience of young Nigerians, advertising practitioners and law enforcement agents.

“Shisha is tobacco; pure and simple. A session of Shisha is 100 sticks of cigarette. There’s nothing safe about it. The flavours will not make you realise the health risk you’re exposing yourself and others to.

“You have people say I don’t smoke cigarette but I smoke Shisha. It’s the same thing if not worse” he announced.

Oluwafemi, who doubles as the deputy executive director of the Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), noted that the saying: “smokers are liable to die young” does not help to discourage the use of tobacco products.

“The saying: ‘Smokers are liable to die young’ does not speak to the real issue. It makes smoking look not so dangerous. It makes death from tobacco products look like a probability when the real message should have been that ‘smoking kills,'” he declared.

He called for the enforcement of the National Tobacco Control (NTC) Regulation 2019 which seeks to discourage the use of tobacco products in the country.