By Jane Okeke
Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa, CAPPA, has backed the proposed increase in Nigeria’s tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, SSBs, describing it as an important measure in tackling the rising burden of non-communicable diseases, NCDs.
A healthy food policy advocate with CAPPA, Robert Egbe, said Nigeria can no longer afford to focus mainly on treating chronic diseases after they emerge, when prevention could reduce both the human and economic costs.
Egbe, in an opinion article, said Nigerians spend about one-point-nine trillion naira annually treating diabetes and other NCDs, while health-related expenses push more than one million Nigerians into poverty every year.
He argued that the existing 10-naira-per-litre excise duty on sugar-sweetened beverages, introduced through the 2021 Finance Act, has been too low to significantly discourage consumption or influence manufacturers to reformulate their products.
Egbe noted that the National Assembly has proposed replacing the fixed levy with a value-based, ad valorem tax linked to the retail price of sugary drinks. The Senate passed the amendment on June 4, 2026, and the bill is awaiting concurrence by the House of Representatives before presidential assent.
He said that a stronger SSB tax could hurt consumers and manufacturers should be considered alongside the existing economic burden of preventable diseases, including medical expenses, lost productivity and reduced household income.
According to Egbe, unhealthy diets and heavily processed foods are important risk factors for several NCDs, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and some cancers, although he stressed that such factors do not explain every case of non-communicable disease.
CAPPA is also advocating complementary measures, including front-of-pack nutrition labelling, mandatory sodium reduction and restrictions on unhealthy food marketing, to improve Nigeria’s food environment.
Egbe maintained that a stronger SSB tax, if properly implemented and partly channelled into public-health interventions, could help reduce sugary-drink consumption, support disease prevention and strengthen Nigeria’s response to the growing NCD burden.
