A Nigerian court has restored the country’s digital lending rules but ruled that the consumer protection regulator, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), cannot licence telecommunications companies or oversee airtime lending, leaving those powers exclusively with the telecom regulator.
The ruling, delivered on Monday by Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/760/2026, dismissed a suit filed by the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN), which had sought to nullify the FCCPC’s Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending (DEON) Regulations 2025.
While the court upheld the validity of the regulations, it agreed with one of WASPAN’s central arguments: the FCCPC’s consumer protection powers do not extend to licencing telecommunications operators.
The ruling extends well beyond a turf battle between two regulators. Airtime and data credit services, used by an estimated 40 million Nigerians in a market worth between ₦300 billion ($217.4 million) and ₦400 billion ($289.9 million) annually, according to data shared with TechCabal by the Association of Licenced Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), have become a crucial fallback for subscribers who run out of airtime or data.
