Meta has appealed a Lagos High Court judgment that found its use of Nigerian users’ data for targeted advertising unlawful. The company filed its notice of appeal on September 30, five days after Justice A.F. Pokanu, sitting in Ikorodu, ordered it to pay the naira equivalent of $100,000, according to BusinessDay.
The Nigerian privacy ruling is as much about what Meta must change as what it must pay. Justice Pokanu also ordered the company to stop the unlawful processing. Meta must file an affidavit within eight weeks showing its Nigerian operations comply with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. By TechMoonshot’s count, that deadline falls around November 20.
The suit came from the Incorporated Trustees of Laws and Rights Awareness Initiative and five individual users. They sought $100 million in general damages and another $100 million in exemplary damages. The court awarded one-thousandth of the first figure, refused the second and added ₦1 million in costs.
Nigeria is a market Meta has courted. The company opened Facebook and Instagram monetisation to Nigerian creators in mid-2024. This judgment targets the data model underneath that business.
What the Lagos Court Decided on Behavioural Advertising Consent
Consent sits at the centre of the judgment. Meta argued that users accept its terms when they register, and that behavioural advertising forms part of the contract behind a free service. Justice Pokanu held that profiling for ads is not essential to running a social network. The court called such profiling “ancillary commercial mechanisms” adopted to generate revenue, according to TheNigeriaLawyer.
Meta also failed to prove how the applicants accepted its terms, the court found. Timestamped clickwrap records or server logs could have shown acceptance, and Meta produced none. The policy documents Meta tendered also carried different effective dates. Under Section 26 of the Act, the burden of proving consent rests on the data controller.
On data transfers, Meta argued that users send their own data abroad because it runs no data centre in Nigeria. The court rejected that reasoning, holding that users do not control how their data is routed or stored. Those transfers breached Sections 41 to 43 of the Act, the judge found. Justice Pokanu also called Meta a data controller of major importance, citing its own admission that tens of millions of Nigerians use its platforms.
What Meta Argued and What the Appeal Will Test
Meta denied liability and told the court that performance of contract justified using on-platform data for advertising. Consent, it said, covered only information from third-party websites and apps. The company said it filed data protection impact assessments with the regulator in November 2024 and December 2025. Finally, it pointed to the applicants’ continued use of both platforms after they sued.
Justice Pokanu rejected each point. Continued use does not waive a constitutional privacy right, the judge held. Foreign-law and forum clauses in terms of service also cannot strip a Nigerian court of jurisdiction over a fundamental-rights claim. According to PPC Land, the judge set out alternative findings so the appeal court would have the trial court’s view.
The Court of Appeal will now decide whether Meta can make behavioural tracking a condition of access, according to BusinessDay. Until then, the September 25 ruling remains a first-instance decision. TechMoonshot did not find a public statement from Meta on the appeal.
Not Meta’s First Fight With Nigerian Regulators
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission fined Meta and WhatsApp $220 million in July 2024. It followed a 38-month joint investigation with the data protection regulator. A tribunal upheld the penalty in April 2025. WhatsApp warned it might leave the country, a claim the commission called a pressure tactic.
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission separately imposed a $32.8 million remedial fee in February 2025. Meta challenged it, then settled out of court in a consent judgment, according to allAfrica. The Lagos court held that the settlement bound only its parties and did not cover the individual applicants.
Other courts have split. A Lagos High Court awarded lawyer Femi Falana $25,000 over a Facebook video in January 2026, and Meta appealed. In July 2026, the Imo State High Court dismissed a $25 million privacy claim against Meta, according to BusinessDay.
Why the $100,000 Figure Understates the Stakes
The award equals about 0.05 percent of the $200 million the applicants claimed. It is also a sliver of the $220 million commission penalty. The money is not what Meta is fighting over.
Enforcement is the harder question. The cease order names the applicants’ data, while the compliance order reaches Meta’s Nigerian operations. Meta says it runs no data centre in Nigeria. And the regulator, which TechMoonshot reported has more than 1,300 organisations under investigation, has settled relatively few cases with binding penalties.
Lawmakers have tried to close the gap. The Senate advanced a bill in March 2025 that would require major platforms to open physical offices in Nigeria. Meanwhile, the regulator has collected ₦7.2 billion from registrations, compliance revenue and fines.
Watch the November deadline. Whether Meta asks for a stay or files its affidavit on time will show how seriously it treats the order. However the appeal ends, the Nigerian privacy ruling has put Meta’s consent model before a court. That court must now say whether a free service can make profiling a condition of entry.
