A non governmental organisation, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rethink his presidency’s fraternity with corporations who break the nation’s laws and harm public health.
CAPPA made the claim in a statement made available to LEADERSHIP signed by Robert Egbe, following a visit by the management team of Coca-Cola to the president where the corporation re-announced a $1 billion investment pledge to Nigeria over a period of five years.
According to CAPPA, Coca-Cola’s latest investment promise was nothing more than a recycled, unfulfilled commitment first made three years ago to the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
CAPPA accused the bottling company of attempting to exploit the rhetoric of investment to whitewash its dirty image marked by multiple dishonest trade practices, as has been repeatedly exposed, including most recently, by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC).
The statement reads, “It is a matter of grave concern that the news is once again awash with Coca-Cola’s promise of a $1 billion investment in Nigeria. This is the second time in three years that the company has made this hollow pledge to different ruling governments, and yet it failed to deliver the first time around.
“Despite the company’s failure to honour its previous commitment, the government of the day has not only embraced the company’s latest pledge with undue fanfare but also quickly risen to defend its dubious track record of dangling promises that never materialise with evidence.
“While the government may claim that Coca-Cola couldn’t fulfil its earlier commitment due to a ‘challenging business environment,’ the disturbing truth remains that, beyond its woeful record of unmet financial pledges, Coca-Cola’s presence in Nigeria has more than any other thing been defined by its persistent onslaught against public health and regulatory infractions than anything else.”
CAPPA described the endorsement of Coca-Cola as shady saying “Sadly, by endorsing Coca-Cola’s shady investment only months after the FCCPC indicted it, the Nigerian government is not only setting itself up as an image launderer for a dirty corporation but also unbelievably, undermining and embarrassing its own regulatory authority”.
According to CAPPA’s executive director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, “The question the Nigerian government must ask itself in light of all this is what truly it stands to gain by endorsing a multinational corporation with a dark history of non-compliance, and whose products are even actively contributing to a public health crisis in the country?
“Sugar-sweetened beverages, like many of Coca-Cola’s products under such category, are well known and documented contributors to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease and other associated health conditions that are already straining Nigeria’s healthcare system and economy.
“As such, while the company’s promises of an economic investment may sound appealing, the potential gains pale in comparison to the long-term public health costs and injury that the consumption of its products inflicts on the Nigerian population as with elsewhere across the world” Akinbode added.
CAPPA warned that the government’s cosy relationship with the beverage corporation could jeopardise the smooth implementation and enforcement of Nigeria’s active sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) tax.
