Authored By: Joan Dimkpa-Promise Giobari
Rivers State University
Introduction
In February 2023, edited images of Nigerian musician Davido were circulated across Instagram, Twitter (now X), and WhatsApp, falsely portraying him as endorsing a cryptocurrency investment platform. Within hours, the deepfake had reached millions of users. No court injunction, no takedown notice, and no criminal complaint prevented its spread. The incident illustrates a defining challenge of contemporary image rights law: the velocity and scale at which social gets media can weaponize an individual’s identity far outpaces the capacity of the Nigerian legal system to respond.
Image rights the legal entitlement of an individual to control the commercial and reputational use of their name, likeness, photograph, and other personal indicia occupy uncertain legal ground in Nigeria. Unlike the United Kingdom, which has developed a sophisticated body of law combining the tort of misuse of private information, passing off, and data protection legislation,¹ Nigeria has no standalone image rights statute. Protection is assembled piecemeal from the Copyright Act 2022,² the Trade Marks Act,³ the tort of passing off, and the constitutional guarantee of dignity of human person under section 34 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).⁴
This article argues that social media poses four distinct and compounding challenges to the enforcement of image rights in Nigeria: the jurisdictional elusiveness of platform operators; the inadequacy of existing substantive law to capture novel forms of digital exploitation; the structural weaknesses of Nigerian enforcement mechanisms; and the practical inaccessibility of legal remedies for most victims. The article proceeds as follows. Part II outlines the existing Nigerian legal framework. Part III analyses each enforcement challenge in turn. Part IV proposes reform measures. Part V concludes.
The Nigerian Legal Framework for Image Rights
Nigeria’s image rights framework is a composite of intellectual property statutes, common law torts, and constitutional provisions, none of which was designed with social media in mind.
The Copyright Act 2022 protects original artistic works, including photographs, and grants authors the exclusive right to reproduce and communicate their works to the public.⁵ Where a subject commissions a photograph, section 28 (3) vests copyright in the commissioner of the photograph affording some control over initial use. However, copyright does not protect identity per se: a third party who independently photographs a public figure or reproduces their image without copying a protected work commits no infringement.
The tort of passing off provides a cause of action where the defendant misrepresents, in the course of trade, that its goods or services are associated with or endorsed by the claimant, causing damage to the claimant’s goodwill.⁶ Nigerian courts have applied this doctrine in commercial contexts, following the classical formulation in Reckitt & Colman Products Ltd v Borden Inc.⁷ Its application to social media image requires proof of a commercial misrepresentation and resulting damage to goodwill. In Banire v NTA – Star TV Network Limited8, the court stated that an individual may protect his image rights where the image is used without his authority through tort of passing off. However, for a plaintiff to rely on the tort of passing off, such plaintiff must prove that (i) the image has acquired sufficient goodwill that can be used in consideration for money; (ii) the third party has misrepresented to the public by using the image; and (iii) the misrepresentation caused or has the tendency of causing damages to the goodwill of the individual.
The constitutional guarantee in section 34 that every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person has not been extensively litigated in the image rights context, but it furnishes a constitutional foundation for future judicial development. Additionally, the Nigeria Data Protection Act 20239 establishes rights over personal data, which encompasses photographs and biometric information. Its prohibition on processing personal data without a lawful basis is potentially relevant to social media exploitation, though enforcement against foreign platforms remains largely theoretical.
III. Challenges Posed by Social Media to Image Rights Enforcement
Jurisdictional Elusiveness of Platform Operators
The most fundamental enforcement challenge is jurisdictional. Meta Platforms, Alphabet (Google/YouTube), and X Corp are incorporated in the United States and do not maintain legally registered presences in Nigeria. A Nigerian claimant whose image has been misused on Instagram cannot ordinarily serve process on Meta in a Nigerian court without navigating complex rules of private international law and mutual legal assistance treaties that Nigeria has not comprehensively concluded with the United States.10
The consequence is that court orders issued by Nigerian judges are difficult to enforce against platforms. A Nigerian High Court injunction requiring the removal of defamatory or image-infringing content has no automatic extraterritorial effect on servers located in California. The claimant is remitted to the platform’s internal content moderation processes processes designed to comply with American law, not Nigerian.11 Nigeria has yet to enact legislation compelling foreign digital platforms above a defined threshold of Nigerian users to appoint local legal representatives, a mechanism adopted by jurisdictions such as Germany under the (NetzDG)12 and in an African context, proposed under Kenya’s Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act 2018.13
Inadequacy of Substantive Law
Social media generates forms of image rights violation that existing Nigerian law does not adequately address. Three are particularly significant.
First, deepfake technology enables the creation of hyper-realistic synthetic images and videos that place a real person’s likeness in fabricated scenarios including non-consensual intimate imagery and false endorsement content. The Copyright Act 2022 does not regulate the generation of synthetic media. Passing off is inapplicable where no commercial misrepresentation is intended. Criminal defamation provisions under the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 201514 may be relevant where reputational harm is caused, but the Act does not create a civil image rights remedy, and its jurisdictional reach against foreign actors is similarly constrained.
Second, the viral resharing mechanics of social media through reposts, duets, quote-tweets, and algorithmic amplification mean that a single unauthorized image can be reproduced by thousands of independent users within minutes. Each act of reproduction is technically a separate legal wrong, but pursuing individual users is practically impossible and, for the original victim, often disproportionate. Nigerian law, unlike the European Union’s Digital Services Act 2022,15 does not impose platform-level obligations of systemic risk management that could address this structural problem at source.
Third, AI-generated advertising content increasingly uses composite or modified likenesses that approximate a celebrity’s appearance without reproducing any specific protected photograph. Such content evades copyright infringement claims while commercially exploiting the recognition value of the individual’s identity. This is precisely the mischief that a right of publicity statute would address and precisely what Nigeria currently lacks.
Structural Weaknesses in Enforcement Mechanisms
Even where a cause of action exists in principle, structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s enforcement apparatus impede practical relief. The Nigerian judiciary faces well-documented challenges of court congestion and procedural delay.16 Interim injunctions the most effective remedy against the ongoing spread of infringing content are subject to the general requirements of American Cyanamid Co v Ethicon Ltd,17 applied in Nigerian courts, including the demonstration of a serious question to be tried, the balance of convenience, and adequacy of damages. In practice, obtaining an ex parte injunction within the timeframe necessary to halt viral spread often hours is near-impossible.
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), established under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, has regulatory authority over data processing, including image data. However, the Commission is nascent, under-resourced, and has not yet developed operational capacity to investigate or sanction foreign social media platforms at scale. The contrast with the Irish Data Protection Commission which, as the EU lead supervisory authority for Meta, has imposed billion-euro fines illustrating the resource disparity that Nigerian regulators face.18
Practical Inaccessibility of Legal Remedies
The economic and procedural cost of litigation places effective image rights enforcement beyond the reach of most Nigerians. Legal fees, filing costs, and the duration of commercial litigation in Nigerian courts mean that only high-profile celebrities with substantial resources can realistically pursue image rights claims. The majority of victims private individuals whose photographs are misused for scams, non-consensual intimate imagery, or political manipulation have no practical remedy.
Platform-level complaint mechanisms offer an alternative, but they are inconsistent, opaque, and calibrated to the legal standards of their home jurisdictions. Meta’s Oversight Board, for instance, reviews a tiny fraction of content decisions and has no specific mandate to apply Nigerian law.19 The absence of any Nigerian digital ombudsman or accessible administrative complaint process for image rights violations further concentrates the enforcement deficit.
Proposed Reforms
This article submits that three legislative and regulatory reforms are necessary to address these challenges.
First, Nigeria should enact a Nigerian Image Rights Act establishing a statutory right of publicity a cause of action vesting in every individual the right to control the commercial exploitation of their identity online. The Act should expressly cover AI-generated and synthetic likenesses, provide for urgent injunctive relief on an expedited judicial track, and create a civil damages remedy including disgorgement of profits.
Second, Nigeria should amend its digital regulatory framework to require foreign social media platforms with significant Nigerian user bases to designate local legal representatives, maintain content moderation teams applying Nigerian legal standards, and comply with expedited takedown orders issued by Nigerian courts or the NDPC. This mirrors the approach of the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Nigeria’s own National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) guidelines,20 though the latter lack binding force against foreign platforms.
Third, the NDPC should develop a low-cost, accessible administrative complaint mechanism specifically for image rights violations, enabling individuals to seek rapid content removal and compensation without resort to full litigation. Such a mechanism, if empowered to issue binding orders against platforms operating in Nigeria, would significantly democratize access to image rights enforcement.
Conclusion
Social media has transformed image rights from a niche concern of celebrity law into a pervasive challenge affecting every Nigerian with an online presence. The enforcement challenges are fourfold: jurisdictional elusiveness of foreign platforms, substantive legal inadequacy in the face of deepfakes and viral resharing, structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s enforcement machinery, and the practical inaccessibility of legal remedies for ordinary victims.
Nigeria’s existing framework copyright, passing off, constitutional dignity, and the nascent data protection regime provides a foundation but not a solution. The gap between the speed of social media and the pace of legal process is not merely procedural: it is structural, and it demands structural remedies. A dedicated image rights statute, binding platform regulation, and an accessible administrative enforcement mechanism would together constitute a proportionate and practicable response.
As Nigeria’s digital economy grows and its citizens become ever more visible on global platforms, the legal system must evolve to protect what may be a person’s most valuable asset in the digital age: their own identity.
Reference(S):
1 Campbell v MGN Ltd [2004] UKHL 22, [2004] 2 AC 457
2 Copyright Act 2022 (Nigeria).
3 Trade Marks Act Cap T13 LFN 2004 (Nigeria).
4 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), s 34.
5 Copyright Act 2022 (Nigeria) ss 2, 28 (3)
6 Erven Warnink BV v J Townend & Sons (Hull) Ltd [1979] AC 731 (HL).
7 Reckitt & Colman Products Ltd v Borden Inc [1990] 1 WLR 491 (HL).
8 Banire v NTA Star Tv Network [2021] LPELR-52824(CA)
9 Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (Nigeria)
10 Fawzia Cassim, ‘Addressing the Challenges Posed by Cybercrime: An Examination of Some Jurisdictional Issues’ (2010) 13 PER/PELJ 133.
11 Meta Platforms Inc, ‘Community Standards’ <https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/> accessed 28 April 2026.
12 (NetzDG) 2017 (Germany), BGBl I 3352.
13 Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act 2018 (Kenya)
14 Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act 2015 (Nigeria)
15 Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Digital Services Act) [2022] OJ L277/1.
16 Nigerian Law Reform Commission, ‘Report on the Reform of the Administration of Justice in Nigeria’ (2022).
17 American Cyanamid Co v Ethicon Ltd [1975] AC 396 (HL).
18 Data Protection Commission v Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd (Case No IN-21-7-3, DPC, January 2023).
19 Meta Oversight Board, ‘Charter’ (2020) <https://www.oversightboard.com/governance/> accessed 28 April 2026.
20 National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), ‘Code of Practice for Interactive Computer Service Platforms/Internet Intermediaries’ (2022).
