1. The Story Moved Fast — Here Is the Latest
On May 21 we published our deep dive on Nigeria’s DEON-driven shutdown of airtime credit — the kind of story you expect to follow over months, not days. It changed within 72 hours.
Here is the corrected picture as of late May 2026:
- May 22, 2026 — Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) issued a public notice suspending enforcement of the DEON Regulations 2025 against telecom operators.
- May 25, 2026 — Airtel and Glo officially restored their airtime and data lending services after a six-week suspension. Users can borrow again via the new harmonised NCC code *303# on both networks.
- MTN — still not resumed. The country’s biggest operator (over 84 million subscribers) is waiting for further regulatory clarity before bringing Xtratime back online.
- The FCCPC has signalled it will challenge the court order, so this is not a final ruling — it is an interim pause in a much bigger regulatory battle.
The reversal traces back to a court order issued on April 15, 2026 by Justice A.L. Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Lagos, after a lawsuit filed by the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN). The court restrained the FCCPC from enforcing DEON against WASPAN members pending further hearings — but the FCCPC kept enforcing it, and operators kept their products offline, until the public notice on May 22 effectively ratified the pause.
In short: the suspension that defined April and most of May was based on a regulation that a court had already restrained. We did not know that on May 21. Now everyone does.
2. The Regulator Fight Behind the Reversal
This is no longer just a compliance story. It is a clean three-way fight over who actually regulates airtime credit in Nigeria:
FCCPC (Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission) maintains that airtime advances are digital lending and fall under DEON. Their argument: predatory loan apps were the main problem, but the regulation’s definition deliberately covers any product that advances money or monetary value via a digital channel — including airtime credit, data advances, cashback, and BNPL.
NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission, the telecom regulator) publicly supports the operators. Their position: airtime credit is a value-added service, already supervised by the NCC under existing telecom frameworks. Adding a second regulator on top is duplication, not protection.
WASPAN went to court on behalf of operators and won an interim restraining order against the FCCPC. Their members — including the major MNOs and VAS providers — argue that DEON’s lending-style requirements (per-transaction consent, full disclosure, registration as a digital lender) are technically incompatible with how telecom credit-advance services operate at USSD speed.
The outcome of this fight matters far beyond Nigeria:
- Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa are watching closely — regulators in all three have flagged interest in tighter consumer protection on airtime advance products.
- If the FCCPC wins on appeal, a precedent gets set that consumer-protection regulators can reach into operator VAS products.
- If the operators win, the line stays where it has been: telecom regulators handle airtime advances, and consumer protection has to coordinate, not override.
Either way, expect the next 6–12 months to set the framework that other African markets will copy.
3. What Actually Changed — And What Hasn’t
It is tempting to read “Airtel and Glo are back” as a signal to refill Nigerian buying budgets. Take a closer look first.
Airtel and Glo are back at the network level — not necessarily at the inventory level
Airtime credit restoration is operator-side infrastructure. It restores the underlying billing fallback that mVAS subscriptions rely on. But for affiliates:
- Advertiser inventory on Glo and Airtel that was paused in April does not automatically re-open on May 26. Each advertiser has to relaunch their offers, re-coordinate with their biller, and review payouts and quality filters before turning the tap back on.
- Many of those offers were running on a fragile equilibrium even pre-suspension — the suspension was the trigger that paused them, but advertiser-side decisions about whether and when to relaunch are taken individually.
- Expect a lag of weeks, not days, between operator-level restoration and CPA-network inventory coming back to pre-April levels.
For now, the practical read: Airtel and Glo are signals of direction, not signals to scale back today. Stay close to your account manager to find out when (and at what payouts) inventory returns.
MTN is still on hold — and this is the one that matters
MTN is the dominant carrier and the home of most Nigerian mVAS volume across the industry. With Xtratime not yet resumed:
- Nigerian DCB conversion on MTN remains depressed vs Q1 2026 baselines
- Advertisers continue to throttle MTN inventory until the operator confirms restart
- Most paused Nigerian offers in the market are MTN-based — until MTN moves, the broader Nigerian volume picture does not really change
Watch for an MTN announcement in the next 2–6 weeks. Once they get regulatory clearance, the country-wide picture shifts.
The flow recommendation is unchanged
Our previous post said there is no PIN-flow escape hatch on Nigeria — the 2-click DCB ecosystem is the dominant product, and PIN-flow inventory barely exists. That is still true. Nothing about the court order changes the structural lack of alternative flows on Nigerian carriers.
4. What to Do — and What Not to Do
This is not “rush back into Nigeria.” It is “stay informed, stay patient, keep your hedge.”
Do — keep your diversification
The Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, and Tanzania volume you redirected in April is now generating its own performance data. Do not unwind it reflexively based on the court order. The FCCPC has signalled it will appeal, and if they reverse the interim, you will want those alternative pipelines warm. Aim to keep at least 30% of your total African budget outside Nigeria for the rest of 2026.
Do — re-engage your account manager
Ask the right questions, in writing:
- “Are Glo and Airtel inventory expected to come back on our offers — and on what timeline?”
- “Are the original payouts being preserved, or are advertisers re-negotiating?”
- “When MTN restarts, are we first in line for inventory?”
- “Are there any new caps, quality filters, or compliance requirements introduced during the suspension?”
Conditions during turbulent regulatory periods often shift faster than offer docs are updated.
Don’t — refill Nigerian buying budgets on this news alone
Operator-level restoration does not equal CPA inventory restoration. Wait for your specific offers to come back live and for the first week of post-restart data before scaling.
Watch three signals
These will tell you which direction the next chapter goes:
- MTN restart announcement — expected within weeks. Resets Nigerian mVAS economics.
- FCCPC appeal filings — first appellate hearing date is the key signal.
- NCC formal statement — if the NCC issues a binding position that airtime credit is VAS under their jurisdiction (not just public support), the regulator fight tilts toward the operators.
5. The Bigger Lesson: Regulatory Stories Move Fast
Six weeks for a regulation to land, paralyse a market segment, and then be paused by a court order. That is faster than most affiliate planning cycles assume. The takeaway is not “always wait” — that costs you opportunity. The takeaway is:
- Build relationships with advertisers who track regulation in real time. Inventory, payouts, and quality filters move along with the news.
- Do not over-rotate on a single update. Most reversals are followed by counter-reversals. Diversification is your hedge.
- Read the regulator-vs-regulator subtext. Nigeria’s story is fundamentally about FCCPC vs NCC. South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana will have their own versions of this. Affiliates who learn to read these subtexts spot opportunities before payouts adjust.
For Nigeria specifically — Glo and Airtel have airtime credit back at the network layer, but inventory recovery on the affiliate side is gradual and uneven. MTN, the country’s largest operator, is still on hold. The full picture depends on a court fight that will play out over months, not days. Stay calibrated, not committed.
6. Bottom Line
- The April–May 2026 Nigeria airtime credit shutdown is partly reversed at the network level: Glo and Airtel are back, MTN is not, FCCPC enforcement is paused but not cancelled.
- Inventory on the affiliate side recovers more slowly than operator-level infrastructure. Restored carrier billing is a signal, not an instant traffic switch.
- The right move is stay informed, keep your diversification hedge, re-engage your account manager, and watch three signals: MTN restart, FCCPC appeal, NCC formal position.
- The longer story — whether consumer-protection regulators can reach into operator VAS products — will set precedent for Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and beyond.
- This story is not over. Stay calibrated, not committed.
Want a live read on which Nigerian inventory is actually back on our side — and which African GEOs are absorbing the displaced volume? Sign up with Affiliate Dragons and our manager will walk you through what is live right now, what the payouts look like, and where to keep your hedge.
