Nigeria gives up on cigarettes

Cigarette consumption has declined in recent years. Around 60 per cent of participants in a Statista Consumer Insights survey in Germany stated that they do not smoke cigarettes. The decline in consumption is also reflected in the sales figures for cigarettes.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, these have fallen significantly since 2011. According to provisional figures, around 791 cigarettes were consumed per inhabitant in 2022 - ten years ago it was still more than 1,000. However, the consumption of e-cigarettes and vaporisers has increased.

Austria (66 per cent) and Switzerland (61 per cent) also have a higher proportion of people who do not smoke cigarettes. In an international comparison, other countries fare even better. In Japan, around 79 per cent of survey participants do not touch a cigarette, while in Nigeria around 85 per cent of all respondents do not even smoke. And this is despite the fact that a packet of cigarettes is comparatively cheap in both countries at the equivalent of less than five euros.

The main reason for the low proportion of smokers in Nigeria is the aggressive political approach to tobacco consumption in recent years. For example, there is a ban on smoking in public places, a ban on all forms of direct and indirect advertising and a ban on the sale of cigarettes within a radius of 1,000 metres of smoke-free areas.

Measures to restrict tobacco consumption

While Nigeria is leading by example, there are of course tobacco control measures in other countries too. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 5.6 billion people live in countries where at least one of the six tobacco control best practice measures (MPOWER) promoted by the WHO has been introduced - that is 71 per cent of the world's population. These include measures such as warnings on packaging - around 79 per cent of WHO member states have introduced these - although not to the same extent everywhere, as the Statista graphic shows.

Almost 38 per cent of countries have strict regulations on which public areas or rooms may not be used for smoking. A similar number of countries have strict bans on tobacco advertising. However, the WHO also points out that 44 countries still have no tobacco control measures in place. In view of the 8.7 million tobacco deaths per year, the organisation is therefore calling for resistance against the tobacco and nicotine industry, which is resisting these health policy measures.