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 constitutional authority. Those regulations govern airtime and data credit services, a market used daily by over 40 million Nigerians and worth between N300 billion and N400 billion annually.

Second, the court confirmed that the FCCPC's authority in competition and consumer protection, as defined under Sections 104 and 105 of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018, takes precedence in those domains. The NCC's technical, licensing, and prudential responsibilities under the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 are preserved alongside it, not subordinated to it.

Third, the court found that the DEON Regulations do not constitute a telecommunications licensing framework, and the FCCPC therefore has no power to grant licences. The NCC remains the sole licensing authority for telecom operators.

That last point has an immediate practical implication. In April 2026, the FCCPC approved five companies to operate as airtime and data credit providers under the DEON framework. The court's ruling calls the regulatory basis of those approvals into question. What happens to those five companies, and to the services they have been providing, is now a live question.

This is described by the court itself as the first judicial clarification of how the FCCPC and the NCC share regulatory control over airtime and data credit services. In a market that touches 40 million daily users, that clarity was genuinely needed.

Earlier this year, airtime credit services were suspended for three months following an FCCPC enforcement directive, disrupting access for millions of Nigerians before services were reinstated. That disruption is the real-world cost of regulatory ambiguity, and it is the backdrop against which this ruling lands.

Gbenga Adebayo, Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, welcomed the ruling's clarity while immediately pointing to what still needs to happen.

"The court has done something important. It has confirmed the FCCPC's authority and, in the same breath, affirmed that the NCC's role is preserved. Concurrency means coexistence. The industry now expects both regulators to establish the coordination framework that the court's reasoning requires," he said.

He also raised the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council directive from April 6, 2026, which requires all federal agencies to conduct a Regulatory Impact Assessment before making major regulatory changes. That requirement remains in force and should, in theory, prevent either regulator from taking unilateral action that disrupts market access again without first assessing the consequences.