Introduction

The last installment of this treatise covered the following themes: Understanding Digital identity in the Nigerian context; the universality of rights in a technological age; digital rights as human rights; data sovereignty; the impact of the NPDA 2023; the challenges of enforcement and their implications on sovereignty. This week’s feature covers a similarly (albeit all-inclusive) field, namely the moral foundation (human dignity) of identity and data rights. Enjoy.     

Enforcement Realities and Sovereignty Implications (Continues)

This behaviour undermines both national policy directives and the financial sustainability of local data centres. More critically, it exposes national data to external jurisdictions with differing legal standards and potentially conflicting geopolitical interests. The gap between infrastructure availability and institutional compliance reveals a deeper systemic challenge: without coordinated enforcement, investment in local data infrastructure will remain under-leveraged, and Nigeria’s vision for digital sovereignty will be continuously compromised. In these scenarios, enforcing the NDPA’s localisation requirements becomes not just a legal matter but an infrastructural and fiscal challenge. Without domestically controlled data centres, robust encryption standards, and a trained pool of cybersecurity experts, the intent of the NDPA may remain aspirational rather than operational.

Moreover, the public sector’s own data practices often fall short of the standards set out in the Act. Many government websites and portals lack secure connections or clear privacy notices. In some cases, sensitive biometric data, such as that collected during national identity registration or elections, has been stored using foreign cloud solutions. This contradiction between legal mandates and actual practice reveals a deeper institutional issue: data sovereignty cannot be legislated into existence without sustained investment in infrastructure, skills, and public accountability. For the NDPA to succeed, it must be accompanied by a national digital policy agenda that promotes domestic technological capacity, public education, and inter-agency coordination.

At the same time, the issue of data sovereignty is not only legal or technical, it is deeply political. In a global context marked by rising digital nationalism, economic protectionism, and cyber geopolitics, Nigeria’s ability to control its data is increasingly linked to its ability to shape its future. Sovereign control over digital resources determines the government’s capacity to develop homegrown artificial intelligence solutions, improve governance through data-driven policies, and protect citizens from foreign exploitation or digital manipulation. Data sovereignty also has profound implications for public trust. Citizens are more likely to engage with digital services when they believe their data is protected by domestic laws and institutions they can understand and access. Sovereignty, in this sense, becomes not only about independence but about democratic legitimacy and transparency.

In sum, the NDPA 2023 is a critical and necessary milestone in Nigeria’s digital evolution. It lays the legal foundation for asserting national control over data, protecting citizens’ privacy, and fostering digital trust. Yet, its success will depend on more than legislation. It will require institutional coordination, infrastructural investment, regulatory vigilance, and a cultural shift in how both the state and the private sector treat data as not just an economic commodity, but a national asset whose governance is inseparable from Nigeria’s sovereignty and democratic future.

Human Dignity: The Moral Foundation of Identity and Data Rights

At the heart of digital identity systems and data governance frameworks lies a central ethical question: how do these technologies reflect, reinforce, or undermine the inherent dignity of the individuals they claim to serve? In a society governed by liberal democratic values, dignity is not aspirational, it is foundational. Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution recognises this explicitly in Section 34, which guarantees every individual the right to dignity of person, freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment, and respect for bodily and mental integrity. However, in the digital sphere, these rights are increasingly mediated through platforms, algorithms, and databases. When systems of identity management and data processing fail to uphold transparency, consent, fairness, and accountability, they do not simply create inefficiencies, they risk dehumanising citizens and violating their constitutional protections.

A core hypothesis, therefore, is that the design and deployment of digital identity systems must be judged not only by their technical functionality, but by the extent to which they preserve or erode human dignity in practice. In Nigeria, this hypothesis is tested daily. The enforcement of the National Identification Number (NIN) registration process between 2020 and 2022, offers a vivid case in point. Introduced to centralise and standardise digital identity verification across multiple government services, the NIN system aimed to enhance service delivery, improve security, and reduce fraud. Yet the process of enrolment revealed deep systemic inequalities. Across the country, elderly citizens, persons with disabilities, rural dwellers, and economically marginalised groups were forced to queue for long hours often under harsh weather conditions just to be enrolled. Many were turned away due to the absence of documents that the State had not effectively provided access to in the first place, such as birth certificates or formal addresses. These were not isolated incidents, but widespread patterns that occurred during a government-imposed deadline under threat of SIM card deactivation. What was intended as a nation-building exercise, quickly became a scenario of institutional exclusion.

Beyond the logistical challenges, this scenario exposed a deeper moral failure. Digital identity systems that disregard users’ lived realities, illiteracy, geographical remoteness, limited documentation fail not only operationally, but ethically. When an individual is unable to access healthcare, education, or a mobile phone SIM because of an identity system that denies them recognition, the harm is not just administrative, it is existential. The experience of being unacknowledged by the state in the digital domain replicates and reinforces social marginalisation in the physical world. In effect, technology that is not inclusive by design risks perpetuating systemic injustice under the veneer of modernisation.

More troubling still is the rise of algorithmic decision-making in critical domains without meaningful oversight. Financial technology platforms in Nigeria increasingly use automated systems to assess creditworthiness, assign risk scores, or determine eligibility for loans. In some cases, these systems scrape data from users’ mobile phones, social media activity, and contact lists without fully informed consent. Similarly, predictive policing tools and surveillance technologies, often deployed under national security pretexts, are opaque and rarely subjected to independent audits. The decisions these systems make can have life-altering consequences, denial of credit, targeting by law enforcement, exclusion from employment yet they often lack mechanisms for appeal, redress, or even explanation. The individuals affected are left without recourse, effectively stripped of their agency in processes that directly impact their lives.

The Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023 makes a commendable attempt to address some of these challenges. Section 35 of the Act grants individuals the right to object to decisions made solely through automated processing, especially when such decisions have legal or similarly significant effects. This is a step toward restoring some level of agency in an increasingly automated world. However, the Act stops short of requiring algorithmic explainability, a crucial safeguard in a digital age where decisions made by machines are often inscrutable. Without mandatory transparency in how algorithms are developed, trained, and deployed, accountability remains elusive, and human dignity remains vulnerable.

To genuinely uphold dignity in the digital age, Nigeria’s governance model must go beyond the prohibition of harm and move toward the empowerment of digital agency. This means creating systems that do not merely avoid discrimination but proactively accommodate the diverse realities of Nigerian citizens across gender, class, ethnicity, geography, and ability. For instance, identity systems must include offline verification options for rural dwellers without internet access, accommodate alternative forms of documentation, and be available in local languages. Data governance policies must ensure that consent is not just a checkbox but a comprehensible and meaningful process, particularly for populations with limited digital literacy.

Furthermore, digital inclusion must be approached not only from a technological standpoint but as a human rights imperative. Institutions must embed ethical standards in every stage of system design, implementation, and evaluation. This includes engaging communities before deploying systems that affect them, conducting regular impact assessments with a focus on marginalised groups, and establishing independent oversight bodies with the authority to investigate harms and mandate reforms. The NDPC, created under the NDPA, has the potential to play this role if empowered with adequate resources, technical capacity, and legal independence.

Ultimately, digital dignity is inseparable from democratic governance. In a society where data increasingly shapes decisions about who gets access to public services, jobs, or even basic recognition, data rights must be treated as an extension of civil rights. The question is no longer whether Nigeria will digitise, but whether it will do so in a way that enhances justice, participation, and human flourishing. If human dignity is not protected in the design and operation of digital systems, then digitisation, no matter how well-funded or technologically advanced risks becoming yet another mechanism of exclusion and disempowerment. (To be continued).

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.”(John Locke)

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