By Stephanie Shaakaa
It is deeply reassuring to discover that amid inflation, currency volatility, rising poverty, mounting insecurity, and the daily acrobatics required to survive modern economic life, the Nigerian Senate has found the time and emotional energy to worry about our sugar intake.
One must admire such dedication to public welfare.
For years, health experts around the world have warned about the dangers associated with excessive sugar consumption. Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and a range of related illnesses have become legitimate public health concerns. Governments have responded in various ways, often through taxes designed to discourage excessive sugar consumption while encouraging manufacturers to reduce the amount of sugar in their products. It is a policy approach that has gained traction across different jurisdictions, and in principle there is nothing unreasonable about it.
This is what makes Nigeria’s latest innovation so fascinating.
The Senate’s proposed reform of the sugar sweetened beverage tax has been presented as a health intervention, a courageous attempt to protect citizens from the dangers lurking inside bottles and cans of fizzy drinks. The existing levy of ₦10 per litre is considered inadequate because inflation has eroded its value. The solution, lawmakers argue, is to replace it with a percentage based tax linked to the retail price of the product.
At first glance, the proposal sounds perfectly sensible. After all, if the goal is to discourage unhealthy consumption, then making unhealthy products more expensive appears consistent with that objective. Yet the closer one examines the structure of the proposal, the more intriguing it becomes.
In many countries that have embraced sugar taxes, the principle is remarkably straightforward. The tax is linked to the amount of sugar contained in the product. The more sugar a manufacturer uses, the higher the tax burden. The less sugar it contains, the lower the tax. The incentive is obvious. Companies seeking to reduce their tax liability reformulate their products, consumers gradually consume less sugar, and governments can plausibly claim a public health victory.
The tax, in other words, remains connected to the thing it claims to target.
Nigeria, however, appears determined to explore new frontiers of policy creativity.
Under the proposed arrangement, the tax is tied not to the quantity of sugar in a beverage but to its retail price. This seemingly technical distinction transforms the entire logic of the exercise. If inflation pushes up transportation costs, the tax rises. If exchange rate pressures increase production expenses, the tax rises. If electricity tariffs make manufacturing more expensive, the tax rises. If a producer removes sugar entirely but the retail price continues to climb because of broader economic conditions, the tax can still rise.
One begins to suspect that sugar may not be the central character in this story after all.
Indeed, there is something almost poetic about a system in which inflation itself becomes taxable under the banner of public health. The old flat rate tax suffered from a fundamental weakness. As prices increased, government revenue remained relatively fixed. The new model elegantly solves that problem. Every increase in retail prices automatically increases the government’s share. Every inflationary shock generates additional revenue. Every upward adjustment in the cost of living creates fresh fiscal opportunities.
For a government searching for non oil revenue streams, one can only admire the ingenuity.
What makes the policy particularly fascinating is that its health justification appears to weaken precisely where its revenue generating potential becomes strongest. If the objective is reducing sugar consumption, then sugar content should matter enormously. If sugar content becomes largely irrelevant to the operation of the tax, then an uncomfortable question inevitably presents itself.
What exactly is being taxed?
The answer appears to be whatever inflation touches.
This is where the policy acquires a distinctly Nigerian character. In many parts of the world, a soft drink is merely a beverage. In Nigeria, it is often something more. It is the small reward at the end of a difficult day. It is a temporary refuge from relentless heat, impossible traffic, and endless queues. It is the affordable luxury that survives after fuel prices, transportation costs, school fees, electricity bills, rent, and food expenses have claimed their share of a household budget. It is not simply sugar water. It is one of the last inexpensive comforts available to millions of people navigating increasingly difficult economic circumstances.
The irony, therefore, is difficult to miss. At a time when many Nigerians are already consuming less, buying less, travelling less, and generally scaling back their lives in response to economic pressure, the state has identified a bottle of soft drink as an urgent national concern. There is something almost touching about the faith that policymakers appear to have in the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. The average Nigerian currently spends so much time calculating what can no longer be afforded that one wonders where this imagined epidemic of excessive consumption is taking place.
Perhaps lawmakers know something the rest of us do not.
If the Senate is genuinely concerned about factors that elevate blood pressure, increase stress levels, and contribute to poor health outcomes, there is certainly no shortage of potential targets. Estimated electricity bills have probably done more damage to cardiovascular health than an entire warehouse of soft drinks. Fuel price increases have produced enough anxiety to qualify as a national fitness programme. The experience of checking market prices from one week to the next has become a form of emotional endurance training. If public policy is to be guided strictly by concern for citizens’ wellbeing, there are numerous competitors for the title of most dangerous substance in the country.
Yet none appears to have attracted the attention currently being devoted to sugar.
Still, perhaps we are being unfair. Perhaps this is indeed a sincere and noble public health intervention. Perhaps lawmakers are motivated entirely by concern for our collective wellbeing. Perhaps the timing is purely coincidental. Perhaps the fact that government revenue rises automatically whenever inflation pushes up retail prices is merely a fortunate side effect rather than an attractive feature.
Anything is possible.
What remains undeniable is the extraordinary symbolism of the moment. Millions of Nigerians are struggling to maintain living standards that would have seemed modest only a few years ago. Families increasingly make difficult choices about food, transportation, education, healthcare, and shelter. Purchasing power continues its slow and painful retreat. Inflation has already stripped much of the sweetness from everyday life. Yet in the midst of these realities, the state has concluded that one of the nation’s most pressing challenges is the affordability of a bottle of soft drink.
The Senate insists this tax is about protecting Nigerians from the dangers of excess sugar. Perhaps it is. But there is something darkly amusing about a country where millions can no longer afford balanced diets, where families routinely skip meals, where inflation has already stripped sweetness from everyday life, and where the state has nevertheless identified a bottle of soft drink as a national emergency.
In the end, perhaps the Senate is right. If current economic realities continue long enough, Nigerians may indeed consume less sugar. Not because public health policy succeeded. Not because healthier alternatives became more accessible. Not because consumer behaviour fundamentally changed. Nigerians may consume less sugar simply because purchasing power disappeared.
And when a nation begins reducing sugar consumption through declining prosperity rather than improved health outcomes, that is not a public health victory.
It is an economic obituary written one teaspoon at a time.
Stephanie Shaakaa can be reached at shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com