Tobacco CSR and the Battle for Public Trust

For Tolu Ajibola, winning a ₦3 million grant was more than an award. It was an opportunity to grow his agricultural business.

Ajibola emerged as the winner of the 2024 Farmers for the Future programme backed by the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation, BATNF. The programme awarded a total of ₦10 million to six young Nigerian agripreneurs, with Ajibola receiving the top prize. He described the opportunity as providing him with the skills, resources and confidence needed to scale his business.

On the surface, there is little reason to see such support as anything other than an opportunity. Yet, the initiative raises a broader question about philanthropy by the tobacco industry and the fine line between genuine corporate social responsibility and efforts to cultivate public goodwill.

Behind the goodwill is an industry whose core commercial activity involves tobacco and nicotine products associated with addiction, disease and premature death. Critics argue that tobacco industry philanthropy can also serve a strategic purpose by positioning tobacco companies as important economic and development stakeholders, potentially giving them greater access to policymakers and communities.

Across Nigeria, the tobacco industry continues to use investment and corporate social responsibility as part of its engagement with communities and public institutions.

The British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation, established by British American Tobacco Nigeria, says it has implemented more than 300 community projects across Nigeria, empowered more than 300,000 smallholder farmers, planted more than 500,000 trees and constructed more than 105 solar powered boreholes. It also reports reaching 1.7 million beneficiaries and investing ₦4 billion in community development.

However, public health advocates argue that such interventions can improve the industry's reputation and create an image of a socially responsible organisation, despite the health consequences associated with its commercial products.

Article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Nigeria ratified in 2005, requires governments to protect tobacco control policies from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry. Its implementation guidelines also call on countries to denormalise and regulate activities described as socially responsible by the tobacco industry, including corporate social responsibility initiatives.

The WHO FCTC Secretariat has identified social responsibility initiatives, alongside political lobbying and research funding, as activities that can be used by the tobacco industry to influence policy and undermine tobacco control efforts.

Nigeria has experienced this challenge in various forms.

The Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2025 reports that tobacco industry corporate social responsibility activities in Nigeria can function as a means of securing institutional legitimacy. According to the report, BATNF has become involved in development initiatives involving water, education and agriculture, often working with ministries and government agencies at state and local government levels.

In Lagos, Oyo and other states, BATNF has supported initiatives ranging from fish farming to borehole construction. Such projects have received public recognition and endorsement from government officials and agencies. Public health advocates argue that these relationships can help the tobacco industry build goodwill, strengthen political access and improve its public image, particularly among vulnerable communities.

The active participation of government institutions in such initiatives has also raised concerns about compliance with Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC, which seeks to prevent tobacco industry interests from influencing public health policies.

The health and economic consequences of tobacco use provide further context to the debate.

In Nigeria, smoking is estimated to be responsible for approximately 29,000 deaths annually and about 816,000 disability adjusted life years. The annual economic burden attributable to tobacco has also been estimated at about ₦634 billion, based on 2019 figures.

Behind these figures are families losing fathers, mothers, spouses and siblings to tobacco related diseases. There are also patients spending money on treatment, workers becoming too ill to remain productive and households losing income following the premature death or illness of a breadwinner.

This creates an uncomfortable contradiction. While one arm of the tobacco industry may support a farm grant, construct a borehole or fund an entrepreneurship programme, the broader commercial system continues to generate revenue from nicotine products.

For beneficiaries such as Ajibola, the immediate impact of a grant can be significant. It can provide capital, skills and opportunities that may otherwise be difficult to access. The wider question, however, is whether such benefits should be viewed separately from the commercial interests of the organisation providing them.

The World Health Organisation maintains that tobacco kills more than seven million people globally each year and that nicotine is highly addictive. It also warns of particular risks to children, adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still developing.

Against this background, stronger implementation and enforcement of tobacco control measures remain important. These include increased tobacco taxation, prominent health warnings, comprehensive restrictions on tobacco advertising and promotion, smoke free environments and measures aimed at protecting young people from nicotine products.

There is also a need for greater public awareness about the relationship between tobacco industry philanthropy and the industry's commercial interests. Young people, farmers, students and other Nigerians should be able to assess tobacco linked initiatives with an understanding of the broader public health context.

For policymakers, the challenge is to balance engagement with private sector actors against Nigeria's obligations under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Development projects may provide immediate benefits to communities, but public health policies must remain protected from commercial interests that could conflict with tobacco control objectives.

Nigeria already bears a significant human and economic burden associated with tobacco use. Against that background, tobacco industry philanthropy deserves careful scrutiny. A grant, borehole or community project may provide genuine benefits to its recipients, but it does not erase the public health consequences associated with the products from which the industry's profits are generated.

The central question, therefore, is not whether tobacco linked foundations can create opportunities. It is whether those opportunities should come with the public recognition, institutional access and reputational benefits that may ultimately make a harmful industry appear indispensable to national development.