By Folarin Aluko
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Nigeria’s digital economy rests on a troubling paradox. Every month, more than 150 million Nigerians are either dispossessed of property or forced to spend more to retain it. According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigerians spend over ₦6 trillion each year on telecom services, making the sector one of the country’s biggest GDP contributors.
Yet Internet Service Providers allow only a short window for rolling over unused data, after which it is erased. This predatory business model is a sunk-cost trap, where value already purchased disappears unless consumers buy more or rush to exhaust what is left. Internet data, which by law and logic belongs to the consumer, is treated as if it were on loan from the operator.
Data appropriation is more than a minor inconvenience. The internet is today’s civic square: students attend lectures, traders run shops, workers meet clients, and citizens interact with government online. Access is no longer optional; it is the passport to social, economic, and democratic participation.
Without data, our lives would grind to a slow and painful crawl because it supports the entire infrastructure of modern life. When a leading network went down nationwide in March 2024, ATMs stalled, mobile transfers failed, schools and businesses could not process sales and government agencies could not function for hours, showing just how quickly the economy seizes up when data access is interrupted.
Nigerians did not arrive here by choice. Like sheep to the slaughter, Nigerians were forced into a digital economy through the ill-advised policies of previous Administrations. This enabled the same Government to tax digital payments while ignoring service quality and contract fairness.
Meanwhile, the same Government imposes steep filing fees and levies on Operators who then quietly pass the cost on to Subscribers. The result is a population overtaxed, overcharged, and routinely stripped of purchased value. This is achieved through a contractual apparatus that dispossess an unwilling and unknowing public of their property.
Contracts without Consent
Some would argue that there is no basis for complaint: “You agreed to the terms. The service provider’s conditions to use or roll over data are clearly printed”. By that logic, a subscriber who loses unused data has only themselves to blame.
The above argument is a straw man, as it assumes a level playing field and a genuine consensus ad idem (a meeting of the minds) which does not exist in the modern telecommunications market.
Nigeria’s telecoms market is built on layers of Contracts of Adhesion between Service Providers and Consumers. An Adhesion contract is a contract drafted entirely by a Service Provider and imposed on Consumers with no room for negotiation.
Where the Party that controls access to an essential service gets to write the terms of the contract and offers no opportunity for negotiation to the other party, what you have is not a contract, but a dictatorship. With regards to Internet Data, these one-sided terms define how long purchased data remains valid, allowing operators to delete unused data.
Adhesion contracts make mass-market transactions possible; from airline tickets, mobile apps, insurance policies, to countless other services; we rely on them out of commercial efficiency. But when these contracts govern essential services such as electricity, health care, education, or internet access, they raise serious concerns because Consumers cannot realistically walk away without excluding themselves from society’s economic and civic life. The imbalance of bargaining power is obvious: one side sets the terms; the other must accept or forfeit access.
Regulators worldwide have an obligation to intervene to balance the equities, ensuring that standard terms for necessary services do not strip people of rights or property.
On their part, the Courts have refused to uphold conditions in Adhesion Contracts that offend public policy or exploit unequal bargaining power. From Post v. Jones (1857) to Campbell Soup Co. v. Wentz (1948), judges have declined to enforce contracts “so one-sided that no honest and fair person would accept them.”
Where access to the internet has become the new marketplace and civic square, an Internet Data agreement that allows Service Providers to erase value already purchased is not merely a matter of private contract; it is a question of public interest. Adhesion contracts in the telecom sector must be shaped by both Regulators and courts to protect citizens from one-sided bargains.
Data is Property
The law divides Property into two broad classes: Tangible and Intangible. Tangible property can be perceived by the senses in a physical way. This includes land, cars, livestock, equipment, machinery, etc. Intangible property, on the other hand, does not have a physical form but carries clear economic value. Common examples of this include Intellectual Property, Digital Currency, Goodwill, Electricity Tokens, Shares, etc.
A Data Subscription Contract has two elements: the data purchased and the period of access to use it. The Consumer pays for a definite quantity of data, the intangible asset, and also for the right to connect within a set window. As with electricity tokens or airtime credit, the Intangible Asset remains the Customer’s even if access lapses.
What happens in Nigeria, however, is different. Service Providers do not merely end access after the paid period; they also erase unused data. Imagine a bank appropriating money in an account because the Account Holder didn’t transact in 30 days; or a power Distribution Company voiding electricity tokens that had already been issued but not yet consumed. Those practices would be condemned because only access should expire, not ownership. Data, which powers education, commerce, and civic life, is no less vital.
Adhesion contracts should never be read to divest Consumers of their property. Section 44 of the Nigerian Constitution and Article 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights forbid the compulsory acquisition of property by any person including the Federal or State Government, without compensation. If Government cannot seize assets without due process, private Service Providers have no license to delete purchased data.
This practice also undermines Nigeria’s obligations under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. SDG 9 on Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, calls for resilient infrastructure and sustainable technology. How can infrastructure be “sustainable” if value disappears at the whim of providers?
Similarly, SDG 10 on Reduced Inequalities seeks to narrow social gaps, yet these Data expiry conditions are not only predatory, they also penalize low-income users who ration data across weeks. A rule that wipes out their property while sparing heavy users is unjust by design.
Regulatory Failure
This injustice endures because regulation has failed. The Nigerian Communications Commission’s duty under Section 4 of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, which mandates safeguarding consumer interests, is undermined when expiry clauses erase value customers have already bought. The NCC cannot continue its preoccupation with revenue generation at the expense of service quality and fair terms for consumers.
A Regulator’s role is to keep markets open, protect the public interest, and set clear rules that promote competition and innovation. Yet the NCC fixes price floors and ceilings for data and voice services, an approach more suited to a 1970s command economy than to Nigeria’s fast-moving digital sector in 2025. Price-fixing blunts competition, shields inefficient operators, and prevents price reductions that a healthy market would deliver. Instead of letting rivals compete on value and quality, the NCC cages them inside rates it prescribes.
At the same time, the Commission imposes steep licence and regulatory fees, treating them as a revenue source for government. Operators quietly shift these costs onto subscribers as higher tariffs or hidden charges. Consumers pay more even as service quality stalls. High regulatory fees operate like a tax, and when combined with VAT and other levies they create multiple taxation, leaving subscribers squeezed from every direction.
The results are visible. As of June 2025, Broadband Penetration (fixed and mobile combined) was only 48.78%, far below the NCC’s stated goal of 70%. Millions remain unconnected or underserved, and those who are online face high prices and contracts that erode value.
When a regulator distorts prices, tolerates confiscatory terms, and taxes the very users it should protect, it undermines the digital economy it is meant to grow. Unless the NCC re-centers its mandate on Market Efficiency and Consumer Protection, Nigeria’s data regime will continue to reward rent-seeking at the expense of access, fairness, and innovation.
The International Contrast
In other jurisdictions, Regulators are acting swiftly to protect users. In 2018, South Africa’s Independent Communications Authority (ICASA) amended its End-User and Subscriber Service Charter after sustained consumer pressure. The rules required data rollover, mandated usage-depletion alerts, and barred providers from billing at out-of-bundle rates without the customer’s consent.
Courts elsewhere have stepped in to review adhesion contracts and scrutinize one-sided terms. In LIC of India v. Consumer Education & Research Centre, the Supreme Court of India held that adhesion contracts must be subject to “reasonable, just and fair” conditions accessible to all segments of society, in line with constitutional guarantees of equality. In that case, the Court upheld the right of all citizens of India to the equal protection of law, under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
Nigeria presents a sharp contrast. The NCC permits service providers to impose expiry policies, yet offers little protection when purchased value disappears. For millions, the grievance is not only financial loss but the erosion of dignity in a market where regulators decline to defend the public interest.
Conclusion
The consequences are plain: students, traders, and everyday users scramble to renew bundles simply to protect what they have already bought. Expiration policies deepen inequality: wealthier Nigerians barely notice, while the poor lose most.
We cannot celebrate technological growth or speak of digital rights while millions living below the poverty line are stripped of the value they have paid for. It is time to end data appropriation. Regulators should mandate rollover, courts should strike down unfair expiry clauses, and service providers should compete on service, not on erasing value. Nigerians deserve to keep what they pay for.
Folarin Aluko is a Legal Practitioner and Digital Rights Advocate. He is a partner in the firm of Trumann Rockwood Solicitors and can be reached at fmaluko@trumann-rockwood.com
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