Olumide Babalola Writes NUC, Suggests Introduction Of Data Protection Law Into The Law Studies Curriculum

Olumide Babalola, a prolific and digital rights lawyer, has written the Nigerian Universities Commission, NUC, advising the introduction of data protection law into the law faculties curriculum.

In a letter dated July 15, 2021, addressed to the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Ayo Ojo, and the Secretary, Prof Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, Babalola suggested the data protection may be introduced under human rights or ICT Law.

Read the letter below

Dear Sir,

INTRODUCTION OF DATA PROTECTION INTO THE LAW FACULTIES’ CURRICULUM.

I am Olumide Babalola, a lawyer, privacy professional and author of Casebook on Data Protection – modestly reputed as Nigeria’s only law textbook on data protection.

Upon Nigeria’s ratification of the ECOWAS Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection in 2010 and particularly the release of Nigeria Data Protection Regulation in January 2019, data protection effectively became one of the practices areas for legal practitioners in Nigeria (albeit the practice area is 51 years old in Europe having surfaced in the Hessen State of Germany in 1970).

It is worthy of note that, data protection is now even studied as a stand-alone course in many universities around the world. (See the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Privacy and Data Protection in Academic: A Global Guide to Curricula’).

It is my respectful suggestion that, in our universities, students could be introduced to data protection under human rights (it is an offshoot of fundamental right to privacy) or ICT law (the increased utility of technology led to emergence of the first modern data protection law in the 70s.) or intellectual property (personal data is viewed as an intangible property in some jurisdictions). Moreso, the Federal Government’s proposed digital economy drive could do with more lawyers who understand data protection especially when taught from their undergraduate days.

From the foregoing, I respectfully urge your Commission to look into this and further align our universities with international standards in this regard.
I thank you for your audience.