Synopsis of Data Protection under the Nigerian Laws: Has the Universality of Right to Privacy Trickled Down to Nigeria?

The concept of personal data protection is no doubt, an off-shoot of the universal human right to privacy and confidentiality. Not only has it been ingrained under Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it has also been incorporated into most of the regional human rights conventions, charters, and treaties, except, of course, the African Charter on Human Rights (ACHR) to which Nigerian affiliates with.

Despite its conspicuous absence in the ACHR, the revolution in the internet and information management technologies have prompted the African Union (AU), and the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) to, respectively, create Convention and Act to regulate the processing of personal data.

However, Nigeria has neither incorporated these treaties nor enacted a comprehensive data protection law. At best, Nigeria has Data Protection Regulations, a Data Protection Bill, and scattered pieces of legislation regulating specific aspects of the processing of personal data.

The question is, has the universal human right to privacy effectively trickled down to Nigeria? This chapter captures the issues at stake and attempts to proffer a suggestion