In Nigeria today, a student in Ilorin can order a wristwatch cheaper than transport fare. A tailor in Abuja can buy sewing accessories at prices once seen only in foreign catalogues. And a trader in Onitsha can browse thousands of items without stepping into a market.

The platform enabling many of these transactions is Temu — a global discount marketplace whose sudden popularity in Nigeria has been almost cultural.

But behind the cheap prices lies a more complicated economy.

An economy of data.

When Shopping Becomes Information

Online shopping does not end when you tap “Buy.”
Every click — what you search, pause on, zoom into, or ignore — becomes information.

Regulators now worry that information may be moving in ways Nigerians do not fully understand.

The Nigeria Data Protection Commission has opened an investigation into Temu’s data practices, examining whether user information is being collected, processed, or transferred beyond what the law permits.

At issue are questions many users never ask:

What happens after an app tracks your behaviour?

Where does your personal information travel?

Who owns patterns created from millions of Nigerian habits?

For a country building a digital economy, these questions are no longer abstract.

They are economic policy.

A Marketplace Built on Behaviour

Temu’s success in Nigeria was predictable.
The platform arrived in a country where inflation reshaped consumer behaviour. Price replaced brand loyalty. Convenience replaced location.

But its business model depends on something deeper than retail — behavioural prediction.

The more a platform learns about users, the cheaper it can sell.
Not because goods cost less, but because attention becomes monetisable.

Data is the subsidy behind the discount.

That is why the regulator, led by Vincent Olatunji, is examining whether tracking practices and cross-border data transfers comply with Nigerian law.

Roughly 12.7 million Nigerians are already part of that data ecosystem.

Nigeria’s Quiet Shift Toward Digital Sovereignty

The investigation is part of a wider pattern.

Nigeria has begun treating data as a national resource rather than a corporate by-product. Last year, authorities fined MultiChoice Nigeria for data-protection violations — a move that signalled regulators were willing to confront even dominant operators.

The Temu case goes further.

Unlike traditional telecom or broadcast companies, global platforms operate across borders instantly. A purchase in Kano may be processed across multiple jurisdictions within seconds.

That raises a new policy challenge:

Can a nation control commerce if it cannot control its citizens’ data?

The African Consumer at the Center

Africa’s digital economy is entering a new phase.
For years, the continent focused on access — smartphones, internet penetration, mobile money. Now comes governance.

Nigeria, with its population size and online growth, is becoming the testing ground.

The outcome of this investigation could determine:

How foreign platforms operate in African markets

Whether data must stay within national borders

How transparent algorithms must become

Temu says it will cooperate and emphasises privacy protection. But beyond compliance, the case represents a negotiation between states and platforms over authority in the digital age.

Beyond One App

This is not a story about one shopping platform.

It is about the future structure of African commerce.

Cheap products may be the visible transaction, but the invisible exchange is influence — patterns of consumption shaping advertising, logistics, and even economic forecasting.

For the first time, Nigeria is asserting that participation in its market requires participation in its rules.

The coming months will reveal whether global technology adapts to national regulation, or whether regulation must adapt to borderless technology.

Either way, the era when Africans were only users in the digital economy is ending.

They are becoming stakeholders in its governance.