In the flickering glow of a power-saving bulb at the back of a boutique in Surulere, where Ankara fabrics danced in rhythm with the ceiling fan, Mama Jibike sat hunched over her receipt book, a tired smile playing on her lips.
Her store, Asọ Ibile Couture, had grown from a sewing machine under a mango tree to an Instagram-famous outfit that now shipped hand-embroidered agbadas and kaftans across Nigeria and beyond—to Accra, Kigali, Nairobi, and even once, to a Nigerian groom in Hamburg.
What Mama Jibike did not know was that her WhatsApp chats with clients, her inventory spreadsheets, and even her Airtel-powered payment processor were all part of a bigger story—a story about data.
Not just data, but privacy.
In another world—one of marble floors and Bluetooth clickers—Dapo Agboola clicked through a slide titled “Why Data is the New Oil—And Why Nigeria Must Refine It”.
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Agboola is a globally renowned privacy and data protection attorney whose influence lies at the crossroads of law, technology, and regulatory compliance. A distinguished alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he earned an LL.M. with a focus on Business Law, he brings over ten years of cross-border legal expertise to organisations navigating the ever-evolving terrain of global data privacy.
His voice was steady, but his eyes scanned the room with quiet urgency. Before him sat a room full of local business owners, tech founders, and two government regulators who looked like they had wandered in by mistake.
He began softly, not with the law, but with a story.
“A woman once called me,” Dapo said. “She runs a wig-making business in Ibadan. Someone stole her customer list from Google Forms. She cried. Not because of the breach, but because her clients, mostly Muslim women, trusted her with photos taken without their hijabs.”
There was silence. Then a slow nod from a man in a kaftan at the back.
It was this ability—to humanise the abstract—that made Dapo’s voice linger long after his lectures ended. He was not just a privacy lawyer. He was a bridge: between silicon and soil, between the laws written in Abuja and the lives lived in Ikorodu.
And as a trusted advisor to multinational corporations across the financial, technology, and professional services industries, Agboola is celebrated for transforming complex regulatory requirements into practical, risk-informed data protection strategies. His dual credentials—Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE)—underscore his unique ability to bridge legal frameworks with technical execution, delivering solutions that are both compliant and commercially sound.
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He knew Nigeria’s legal journey into data privacy had been late, uneven, and sometimes laughable. Section 37 of the Constitution spoke of privacy, yes, but in the language of landlines and letters, not metadata, facial recognition, or smart TVs that listened too hard.
Yet, from that faint legal whisper, a murmur had grown. The 2019 Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), followed by the 2023 Nigeria Data Protection Act, had finally drawn a line in the red sand.
On 20 March 2025, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) issued the long-awaited Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA) General Application and Implementation Directive (GAID), a key document aimed at providing further clarification and guidelines on the application of the NDPA.
And with the 2025 GAID directive, there was, at last, a semblance of direction—a guide for both entrepreneurs and multinationals navigating the tangled web of compliance.
Dapo’s passion was not just compliance; it was sovereignty.
“Local businesses are sitting on gold,” he would say. “Not crude oil, but behavioural data. Purchase patterns. Social preferences. And the way we protect that gold will determine if we trade it or give it away cheaply.”
It was not enough to “support Nigerian businesses.” You had to protect their digital infrastructure. You had to ensure that a Kente textile business in Accra could trust a seamstress in Aba with order details. You had to make sure that data didn’t leak across borders like palm oil in a woven basket.
Because trust—digital trust—was the new passport for intra-African trade.
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Mama Jibike never met Dapo. But she felt his work one Tuesday morning when Paystack paused her account and sent a stern-looking email: “Please update your privacy policy to comply with the NDPA 2023.”
She grumbled, of course. Then called her niece who was doing law at Babcock. Together, they put together something. Basic. But hers.
And somewhere in a folder in the cloud, her clients’ measurements and delivery addresses became protected. It wasn’t perfect. But it was progress.
There is power in naming things, Chimamanda once said. Dapo Agboola gave Nigerian businesses the words to name their digital boundaries—consent, data subject rights, and retention policy.
And in doing so, he gave them something more precious: the right to own their story. Their market. Their future.
So that someday, when a boutique in Bamako orders a batch of embroidered agbadas from Surulere, and the transaction is smooth, secure, and trusted—it will be because someone once whispered in a lecture hall, “Data is not just about compliance. It is about dignity.”
And Nigeria listened.
