Group steps up advocacy campaigns to curb underage drinking

As part of efforts to curb underage and excessive drinking in the country, the Distillers and Blenders Association of Nigeria (DIBAN) under the auspices of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has stepped up its advocacy campaigns to promote responsible consumption of alcoholic beverages while discouraging its sale to users below the age of 18.

In a statement by the chairman of DIBAN, Chief (Engr.) Patrick I. Anegbe, the association, representing one of the oldest and thriving indigenous industries in Nigeria, said the body had taken up the advocacy as a Corporate Social Responsibility through outdoors messaging on Billboards, Mass Transit Buses and radio campaigns to sensitize consumers about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption and advocating moderation. Some of the campaign themes include: “Drink moderately”, “Health is Wealth”, “Enjoy life to the fullest” and “Don’t mix”.

Anegbe said: “We will also embark on various advocacy campaigns, which will include massive training of our distributors and retailers on the need to avoid sales of alcoholic beverages to underage. This will require the development of appropriate training manual, which will be in major Nigerian languages. To restrict access of the underage to alcohol beverages, the industry will strengthen the supervision of distributors and retailers.

“In addition, we will employ advocacy campaign programmes in order to strengthen the efforts towards reducing alcohol consumption, underage drinking and improving responsible drinking in collaboration with civil society groups, under the supervision of National Agency for Food Drug Administration Control, Consumer Protection Agency and Federal Ministry of Health.

“DIBAN will in addition deploy robust social media platforms to reach out to the target audience while one of our member companies is working on the roll out of the highly impactful, school enlightenment program-SMASHED,” he added.