World Cancer Day: CAPPA Urges Nigeria To Fix ‘Broken Food System’ To Curb Cancer
What Nigerians eat, and how that food is produced and marketed, is increasingly shaping the country’s cancer burden.
On World Cancer Day 2026, themed ‘United by Unique’, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) warned that cancer is no longer a distant threat but a growing epidemic in Nigeria, driven in part by unhealthy food systems and weak regulation.
In a statement, signed by the Media & Communications Officer, Robert Egbe, CAPPA cited data from the National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment showing over 120,000 new cancer cases and at least 72,000 cancer-related deaths annually.
While genetics and environmental factors play a role, the group said rising cases of colorectal, breast and prostate cancers are increasingly linked to ultra-processed foods, excessive sugar and salt intake, and poor regulation of tobacco and emerging nicotine products.
CAPPA urged federal and state governments to “fix the cracks” in Nigeria’s food system by tightening healthy food policies, restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children, setting clear nutrition standards for schools, hospitals and public institutions, and developing national salt-reduction guidelines with mandatory targets for processed foods.
It also called for a review of the sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) tax from ₦10 per litre to 50 per cent of the final retail price of sugary drinks.
Highlighting tobacco as one of the biggest preventable cancer risks, the organisation demanded full enforcement of the National Tobacco Control Act, inclusion of new and emerging nicotine products in advertising bans, higher tobacco excise taxes adjusted for inflation, and stricter action against illicit tobacco trade.
CAPPA welcomed the Federal Government’s plan to earmark pro-health taxes for cancer prevention and care, noting this could reduce out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
Warning that Nigeria’s health system is under severe strain, with about 40,000 doctors serving over 200 million people, CAPPA said the country cannot “treat its way out” of the cancer crisis.
It called for prevention-focused policies on tobacco, food and alcohol, combined with early detection, sustainable health financing and accountability, to save thousands of lives each year.
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