Court Rules FCCPC Can Regulate Airtime Credit Services But Cannot Issue Telecom Licenses
A Federal High Court in Lagos has settled, at least for now, one of the more consequential regulatory arguments in Nigeria's digital economy: who has authority over airtime and data credit services, and how much of it. Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa ruled on Monday in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/760/2026 that the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has the statutory authority to regulate airtime and data credit services under consumer protection law, but cannot issue licences. That power remains exclusively with the Nigerian Communications Commission. The court's framing of the relationship between the two regulators was precise: "Concurrency means coexistence, not displacement." The FCCPC NCC airtime data credit regulation court ruling Nigeria covers several distinct points, each of which matters for how this market operates going forward. First, the court upheld the DEON Consumer Lending Regulations 2025 as within the FCCPC's statutory and constituti...
