Introduction
The Nigerian advertising and marketing communications landscape and industry continues to undergo significant transformation following the enactment of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) Act, 2022 (“the Act”) and the revised Nigerian Code of Advertising Practice. These instruments introduce far-reaching provisions that redefine the scope of advertising and marketing communications towards ensuring that advertisements directed at the Nigerian market are legal, decent, honest, truthful, respectful, devoid of misinformation and disinformation and mindful of the Nigerian culture, constitutional tenets as well as relevant laws. They are also geared towards promoting and encouraging local content, best practices, fair competition, foreign investment, innovation and efficiency while preventing misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.
In order to achieve the foregoing objectives, the Act established the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (“the Council”) to administer the law, ensure compliance and impose sanctions where the provisions law are not complied with.[1]
One of the notable advertising requirements introduced under the Act is the compulsory pre-approval procedure for all advertisements directed at the Nigerian market. This is to ensure that the Council has the opportunity of scrutinizing all advertisements for the purpose of ensuring that they meet the objectives and standards prescribed under the Act before they are published.
Whilst the objectives of the law are clear and positive and whilst the establishment of the Council for the purpose of ensuring the realization of the said objectives are also positive, it would appear that the manner of enforcement of the Act by the Council runs amok.
