The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) says officials from 17 countries have visited Nigeria in the past two years to learn from the country’s data protection regulatory experience.
The National Commissioner of the NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja during the inauguration of the commission’s new headquarters.
Olatunji said the visits had positioned Nigeria as a model for Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) in Africa and beyond.
“We are now a model among DPAs across the globe, to the extent that DPAs in different countries are now coming to learn from us.
“We have had about 17 countries visit the commission in the last two years, while engagements with other international data protection authorities are still ongoing,” he said.
According to him, the commission has signed 28 memoranda of understanding with regulators, development partners and data protection authorities in countries including Canada, Morocco, Liberia, Kenya and Ghana.
He said the NDPC had also received recognition for its work in Africa and had been nominated for three awards at the Global Privacy Assembly scheduled for November in Brussels.
Olatunji described the international recognition as a major achievement for an institution that began as a small data protection unit under the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
“When we started this commission, we had a seed in our hands which we planted, watered and nurtured. It grew and has blossomed to what we are witnessing here today,” he said.
The commissioner said the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) was issued in January 2019, while the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) was signed into law by President Bola Tinubu on June 12, 2023.
He said the Act provided the commission with the legal and institutional framework to regulate data protection and strengthen privacy rights in Nigeria.
Olatunji said the commission had grown from occupying three rooms at NITDA to five rooms in Maitama, 20 rooms in Asokoro and now a 56-office headquarters.
He added that 98 percent of the commission’s staff were certified data protection officers, while 356 Data Protection Compliance Organizations (DPCOs) had been licensed under its public-private partnership model.
According to him, the commission and its licensed DPCOs had contributed to the creation of more than 27,000 jobs within three years.
He said more than 66,000 people had been onboarded through the commission’s Virtual Privacy Academy, while over 220 training programs had reached more than 90,000 participants across various sectors.
Olatunji added that DPCOs had generated more than N12 billion in revenue within three years, while the wider data protection ecosystem was valued at over N18 billion.
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He said the commission had also established 17 data privacy clubs in universities, with 6,176 student ambassadors, and reached more than 250,000 people through various data protection engagements.
Olatunji described the newly inaugurated headquarters as the largest data protection office in Africa.
He added that construction work was ongoing on the commission’s Lagos office, which he said would be commissioned before the end of the year.
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