Tinubu orders probe of Meta, Google, X and AI platforms over alleged exploitation of Nigerian media content

President Bola Tinubu has directed the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to investigate major global technology companies and generative AI platforms operating in Nigeria, following allegations that they have engaged in anti-competitive practices and unlawfully exploited the content of Nigerian media organisations.

The directive was conveyed to the FCCPC through a letter from the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, and announced in a statement issued Monday by the Commission’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Ondaje Ijagwu. It follows a joint petition submitted to the Presidency by the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO), an umbrella body comprising the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria, and the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers.

Companies named in the inquiry include Meta, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and X, formerly Twitter, alongside unnamed generative AI platforms operating in the country.

What the investigation will cover

According to the FCCPC, the probe will focus on three areas: allegations of market dominance and anti-competitive conduct; the unauthorised extraction, scraping, and commercial use of copyrighted Nigerian news content to train generative AI models; and claims that Nigerian publishers have been denied fair opportunities to negotiate compensation for the use of their journalism. The Commission said it will determine whether any of this violates the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018 or other applicable law.

FCCPC Executive Vice Chairman Tunji Bello was careful to frame the probe as fact-finding rather than an accusation: “This inquiry is not directed at any entity by presumption of wrongdoing… it is an opportunity to carefully examine the facts, hear from all affected parties, and determine whether any conduct has resulted in anti-competitive outcomes or unfair business practices.”

The backstory

The NPO’s petition followed months of pressure. At an interfaith dinner in March, Tinubu had already promised to back the industry’s campaign against what publishers describe as Big Tech’s dominance and its toll on local media revenue. Speaking on the NPO’s behalf at that event, BusinessDay publisher Frank Aigbogun accused tech companies of increasingly scraping proprietary content, often bypassing paywalls to train AI models, and estimated the practice was costing Nigerian media at least 70 percent of legitimate income, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, along with jobs.

Why it matters beyond Nigeria

Analysts have flagged the AI-training component as the most novel part of the probe, more so than the market-dominance question, which echoes complaints media industries have made against Big Tech for years. If the investigation leads to a framework requiring AI companies to compensate Nigerian publishers even modestly, it would give Nigerian media a revenue stream that doesn’t currently exist, and could become a reference point for other African regulators grappling with the same question: what, if anything, AI companies owe to the journalism they’re trained on.