The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) is the highest federal competition regulator in Nigeria. The FCCPC operates within the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment and is responsible for protecting market competition and promoting consumer protection.
In 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, thereby creating the agency. The agency’s purpose is to develop and promote fair, efficient, and competitive markets in the Nigerian economy and to also facilitate the access by all citizens to safe products, and secure the protection of rights for all consumers in Nigeria.
In 2020, the FCCPC signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), pledging international cooperation in the realm of consumer protection efforts.
The commission, among other things, is to develop and promote fair, efficient, and competitive markets in the Nigerian economy, facilitate access by all citizens to safe products, and secure the protection of rights for all consumers in Nigeria.
Babatunde Irukera is the Chief Executive of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC.
The functions of this agency include:
- Ensure that producers and service providers and their patrons mutually respect their commercial and social contracts.
- Diminish to the barest minimum incidents of consumer aggravation and frustration.
- Sufficiently protect consumers from hazardous products or injury from consumption of substandard products.
- Promote a quality culture in both processes and final products.
- Engender a marketplace of informed, sophisticated and discriminatory consumers.
- Provide information and be a resource to consumers regarding products, trends, and patterns.
- Ensure that service providers and manufacturers make full disclosures of relevant information about their products, or developments with respect to consumption of their products, in a consumer-friendly manner that truly guides consumers’ choices.
- Ensure that producers and service providers institutionalise appropriate customer care systems including providing information, and appropriate support through the acquisition/consumption, and post-acquisition/consumption process.
- Promote the establishment of dedicated customer service apparatus by producers and service providers, including clear, transparent, and accessible complaint resolution mechanisms.
- Hold providers and producers accountable for satisfying customers, including serving as a secondary level complaint resolution mechanism.