An institutional contradiction has opened up within the federal government that threatens to derail Nigeria’s economic recovery. While President Bola Tinubu’s administration spends significant diplomatic and political capital in global financial hubs to attract foreign direct investment, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is pursuing a domestic regulatory strategy that seems almost engineered to repel FDI. Capital goes where it is welcome, but more importantly, it stays where the rules are predictable.
The core of the issue is the FCCPC’s unilateral attempt to force the telecom airtime-and-data advance ecosystem into its DEON consumer-lending framework. In doing so, the Commission entirely bypassed the mandatory regulatory impact assessment required by the Council of Residential Enabling Business Environment. This bypass allowed critics to freely “math-wash” the sector, weaponising an inflated trillion naira market valuation to claim massive capital flight by foreign actors.
When the data is properly interpreted, however, the “capital flight”
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