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The tobacco industry has always shown much interest in marketing their line of products and have been very successful in portraying smoking as a socially acceptable behavior to billions of people throughout the world. Studies have shown in developed nations that tobacco marketing leads to the onset of smoking among adolescents; in Nigeria, no such study has been done. The purpose of this research is to assess the potential influence of tobacco marketing on tobacco consumption among rural and urban residents in the southwestern region of Nigeria.

The survey was designed by the researcher: thirty-six items, self-administered by paper instrument using a cross-sectional design, were distributed to six hundred people in southwestern Nigeria. The study involved 436 males (72.7%) and 164 females (27.3%). Of these, 336 came from rural areas and 264 came from urban areas respectively. Some 337 respondents (56.2%), indicated that they were influenced by tobacco marketing to smoke, while 263 (43.8%) indicated that they were not influenced. The chi square statistic was used to test the null hypotheses. The result shows a positive significant relationship that supports the notion that tobacco marketing has a positive influence on tobacco consumption in the study areas. This study also revealed that more males in the urban area are being influenced by tobacco marketing to smoke.