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The Ekiti State Government has pledged to update its tobacco control law to address the growing availability and use of new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products, warning that these products pose a significant threat to public health, especially among young people.

The commitment was made on Thursday during a stakeholder engagement in Ado-Ekiti to commemorate World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2026. The event, themed “Unmasking the Appeal: Countering Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction,” was organised by the Ekiti State Ministry of Health and Human Services in partnership with Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA).

The ministry also commended CAPPA for its sustained support for tobacco control efforts in the state and reaffirmed its commitment to preserving Ado-Ekiti’s smoke-free status while building on existing gains in tobacco control.

Speaking at the event, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Human Services, Mrs. Sola Gbenga-Igotun, described World No Tobacco Day as “a day that gives hope to our people” and urged stakeholders to intensify efforts to combat tobacco and nicotine use.

She expressed concern over the increasing exposure of children to nicotine products.

“Some children as young as seven, eight and nine years old are already victims,” she said.

Highlighting the dangers posed by emerging nicotine products, Gbenga-Igotun urged parents and guardians to be more vigilant.

“Some of them are smoking, and these products are odourless, so you may not even notice,” she said. “Let us leave this place as advocates. We are speaking to our conscience that this is happening and destroying our young people. Let us take action.”

Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Dr. Sunday Omoya, who represented the Commissioner, Mrs. Tosin Aluko-Ajisafe, stressed the need for collective action against tobacco and nicotine use.

“I am glad we are discussing this menace,” Omoya said. “We need to unmask whatever makes these products appealing. Why do people embrace smoking when it is clearly harmful to health? I pledge the support of our officers towards tackling this challenge.”

In a presentation titled “The Current State of Tobacco Control in Ekiti State and the Way Forward,” the Director of Public Health, Dr. Abayomi Ibrahim, disclosed that the state plans to review its tobacco control framework to include emerging tobacco and nicotine products.

He highlighted major milestones recorded by the state, including the 2012 Smoke-Free Law prohibiting smoking in public places, the Ado-Ekiti Declaration on World No Tobacco Day 2025 which designated the city as smoke-free, and increased public awareness among women and young people.

Ibrahim, however, noted that significant challenges remain. These include weak enforcement arising from limited monitoring capacity, inadequate funding, growing youth attraction to shisha and e-cigarettes, tobacco industry interference, and limited data for effective decision-making.

According to him, the way forward includes strengthening enforcement through the training of health officials and law enforcement officers, creating a dedicated budget line for tobacco control, and expanding youth-focused interventions such as school-based programmes and peer education initiatives.

He also recommended deeper community engagement involving traditional and religious leaders, a review of the state’s tobacco control law to reflect emerging realities and global best practices, and the establishment of stronger monitoring and evaluation systems.

Speaking on this year’s World No Tobacco Day theme, CAPPA’s Assistant Executive Director, Mrs. Zikora Ibeh, commended Ekiti State for its leadership in tobacco control and praised the state’s efforts to maintain Ado-Ekiti’s smoke-free status.

According to her, the achievement demonstrates that tobacco control is not solely the responsibility of federal and state governments but requires the active participation of communities and citizens.

While noting that cigarettes remain the most visible tobacco products, Ibeh said the tobacco industry has shifted its focus to a new generation of nicotine products.

“Today, the industry is selling nicotine in different forms and devices,” she said. “Products such as vapes and nicotine pouches are being aggressively marketed both offline and online. They are packaged in colourful, attractive designs and often come in flavours such as apple, bubble gum and other sweet varieties that appeal to young people.

“These are deliberate tactics to recruit new users and sustain addiction. To mask the harshness of nicotine, the industry hides behind attractive flavours and misleading claims that these products are safer alternatives.

“We ask: safer alternatives to what? Smoking causes disease and death. Are these products safer alternatives to disease? Or to death?”

Ibeh also criticised the tobacco industry’s “Quit Like Sweden” campaign, describing it as misleading.

“The claim is that these products helped Sweden reduce smoking and that Nigeria should follow the same path. That is simply not true,” she said.

“Sweden’s progress was driven by comprehensive tobacco control policies, including strong regulations, public education, taxation, and restrictions on tobacco marketing not by the tobacco industry’s products. Yet they continue to promote this false narrative.”

Warning that vaping and other emerging nicotine products pose serious health risks, she called for stronger regulation and tighter controls to protect young people from addiction.

Representatives of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Ekiti State chapter, also expressed support for a smoke-free Ekiti, noting that both faith traditions discourage smoking because of its harmful effects on health and society.

From a Canadian Embassy partnership in Lagos to stages in New York, Atlanta, Winnipeg, and Toronto, the Afrobeat pioneer is building a diplomatic cultural movement that governments are taking seriously.

There is a version of this story that is easy to tell. Artist loves his music. Artist travels the world. People cheer. But that is not the story of Chronicles of Afrobeat, and it is certainly not the story of Bankuli. What he has built over the past several years is something far more deliberate, far more structurally ambitious, and far more consequential for the global standing of African music than a tour.

It started in Lagos, but it did not start with a stage. It started with a meeting room, a partnership, and a decision to attach institutional weight to a cultural movement that the world was only beginning to understand. Bankuli entered into a strategic partnership with the Canadian Embassy in Nigeria, and that single move changed the entire trajectory of what Chronicles of Afrobeat could become.

“The essence of that partnership is a strategic partnership. It gave us a sort of diplomatic backing. We were able to achieve that.”

Diplomatic backing is not a small thing. It means the project is not simply an artist touring for ticket sales. It is a cultural initiative with governmental credibility attached to its name. That distinction opens rooms that music alone cannot open. And Bankuli walked through every one of those rooms.

From Lagos, the Chronicles of Afrobeat moved to New York, where Prime Music Partners came on board as the convening partner for the city leg, bringing with them a network of industry relationships and a clear understanding of what it takes to position African music seriously in one of the world’s most competitive music markets. Their involvement gave the New York chapter of the tour a professional infrastructure that matched the diplomatic weight the project had already built.

Then came Atlanta, where the city’s most honoured community leaders presented Bankuli with a formal recognition for his contributions to culture and the arts. The Atlanta leg was anchored in partnership with Kelvin Boj, an artist and creative whose transatlantic identity made him a natural collaborator for a project that lives at the intersection of African heritage and global ambition. It was a moment that confirmed what many in the African music space had already begun to sense: this project was bigger than its founder.

But Winnipeg was where everything changed in scale. The city of Winnipeg came on board not as a venue host but as a full partner, and helping to shape the cultural presentation across both Winnipeg and Toronto was Art of Our Roots, an organisation whose entire mission is rooted in the preservation and celebration of diasporic identity through art and community. Their involvement was not decorative. It was structural. They brought the kind of on-the-ground cultural legitimacy that made the Canadian leg feel less like a foreign tour and more like a homecoming for a community that had been waiting for this moment.

The deputy mayor attended. The deputy premier attended. The Manitoba city museum opened its doors. This was not a Nigerian artist getting a warm reception abroad. This was a cultural institution being received with the protocols typically reserved for diplomatic delegations.

“We actually partnered with the city of Winnipeg. The deputy mayor was in attendance, the deputy premier were in attendance, the city museum, Manitoba. There were a lot of positivity.”

Toronto followed, with an event held at Del X, one of the city’s most prestigious hotel venues. Five cities across three countries, each one adding a new layer of credibility and reach to the project. And Bankuli is not slowing down.

The UK leg is confirmed for July and August. Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia are all lined up in sequence. After that, Bankuli has something larger in mind, a platform he is deliberately not naming yet, because the announcement needs to be made at the right time and in the right way.

“We’re going to do UK between July and August. Then we’re going back to Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. Then we’ll push it to the bigger platform. We don’t want to name it.”

What Bankuli is building is not a tour. It is a diplomatic and cultural infrastructure for Afrobeat. A system of relationships, institutional partnerships, and media presence that will outlast any single event and give African music the kind of global architecture it has never had before. The cities are changing. The institutions are paying attention. And Bankuli is just getting started.

By Maduabuchi Nmeribeh/Kano

A 70-year-old shepherd simply identified as Alhaji Saleh, and his two children, were rescued from the shackles of bandits in Kano, on Friday.

The victims are safe, as the Shepherd is currently on medication, at a Kano hospital.

The two children of the attacked Shepherd have already been reunited with their immediate family for absolute care.

The rescue operation was carried out by operatives of Kano Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

Our Correspondent gathered from security sources, that the criminal elements, also planned to rustle scores of livestock within the area.

The suspected bandits targeted their nefarious operation at Bakin Komau, Dangora community of Kiru Local Government Area, Kano state.

However, operatives of the NSCDC, rescued the two abducted children, repelled cattle rustling, and further attacks, within the area.

The Kano Command NSCDC, Public Relations Officer, Ibrahim Idris Abdullahi, also confirmed the development in a Statement issued in Kano, on Friday.

According to the statement, “a group of armed criminals attacked a Shepherd, leaving him with serious injuries, before abducting his two children during an attempt to rustle livestock in the area.

“Upon receiving a distress call, NSCDC personnel stationed around the nearby Dansoshiya Forest swiftly mobilized to the scene and engaged the suspects in a gun duel.

“The operatives’ rapid intervention forced the assailants to abandon the victims, and flee into the forest with gunshot wounds.

“The rescued victims were safely reunited with their family, while the injured Shepherd, 70-year-old Alhaji Saleh, was immediately taken for medical treatment.”

The authorities of Kano NSCDC further explained that its operatives were deployed to the area as part of efforts to secure the ongoing Dam construction project and protect surrounding grazing reserves and farming communities from criminal activities.

The Kano State Commandant of the NSCDC, Mohammed Hassan Agalama, reaffirmed the Corps’ commitment to protecting lives, property, and critical national assets across the state.

He also urged residents to continue supporting security agencies with timely and credible information to enhance rapid response to threats of lives and property, and strengthened security within communities.