Big congratulations to a consummate journalist, lawyer, environmentalist and administrator
Come July 1, Mr Tunji Bello, the chief executive officer and executive vice-chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), will be 65 years old.
Bello had served in various capacities before his appointment to lead the FCCPC. And since he assumed duties at the commission in June 2024, he has transformed the unarguably unknown commission and brought it into the kind of limelight it never knew until now.
Bello started his career after graduation at the University of Ibadan (UI) Ibadan, as a features writer with the Concord Press of Nigeria. He later became assistant features editor, features editor and political editor at the Concord Group.
His rise in the job was meteoric. He was editor of ‘Sunday Concord,’ and then editor of ‘National Concord’, the Concord Newspaper Group’s daily title.
When the Concord Group became defunct as a result of the protracted June 12 crisis, Bello joined ‘ThisDay’ as chairman of its Editorial Board in 2000.
He was a staff writer with St. Petersburg Times, Florida, USA; and The US News & World Report, Washington DC in 1992.
Bello’s experience as a journalist exposed him to diverse people, and the connections that he was able to make then was to be an added advantage when he left journalism for politics.
Of course, Bello had all along been interested in politics as, even as far back as his days at UI, he was vice president of the university’s students union. Politics
A strong advocate of democracy, Bello’s mainstream national political career started when Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO), winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, appointed him as special assistant.
He later joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which was in the vanguard of the clamour for the actualisation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Bashorun Abiola.
A consummate journalist, lawyer, environmentalist, political scientist and administrator, Bello, born on July 1, 1961, had served in various capacities, especially in Lagos State, before his current appointment. Politics
On returning to democratic rule in 1999, Bello started out in Lagos as managing director of Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA), under the Bola Tinubu administration. In 2003, he became commissioner for the environment. He was appointed Secretary to the Lagos State Government by the Akinwunmi Ambode administration on May 29, 2015, a position he held until the end of that administration in 2019.
He became commissioner for the environment and water resources during the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration on August 20, 2019 and served till the end of the first term of the government in 2023.
He thereafter moved to the centre with his appointment by President Tinubu as head of the FCCPC on June 24, 2024.
If Bello’s name reverberated in Lagos, especially in his days as environment commissioner, during which he was regarded as the ‘encyclopedia’ of the drainage channels in the state, the reverberation is even louder at the FCCPC because of the way he has turned round the fortunes of the hitherto unknown consumer protection commission in just two years.
Such is the transformation that some hitherto corporate giants and juggernauts that were hitherto untouchable or thought to be larger-than- life have been forced to eat the humble pie in their legal tangos with the commission, especially as regards its core mandate of consumer protection.
I am talking of corporate giants like Meta Platforms Incorporated (Facebook) and WhatsApp LLC; MTN, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Air Peace, and pay-TV provider, Multichoice.
But for our kind of country, we do not need these giants falling one after the other in court before corporate players would know their limits under the law. But ours is a country where all manner of people pretend not to understand the simple English language that judges use in pronouncing their judgments, especially when the judgments do not favour them. Mostly, the charge against these giants is their trampling on consumer rights with impunity. But, rather than answer this otherwise simple question with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, they start challenging the authority of the public agency that has accused them of lording it over consumers who, ordinarily, should be kings.
Mercifully, since these corporate overlords have learnt not to learn the appropriate lessons, by asking the same question over and again, the courts too have not been tired of repeating, even if for the umpteenth time, the overarching powers of the FCCPC in all sectors of the economy, at least as far as consumer rights are concerned.
Now, the victories in some details.
Perhaps the first corporate giants to realise that it is no longer business as usual at the FCCPC was Meta, which was on July 19, 2024, issued a final order imposing a $220m administrative penalty on it, over privacy violations. This was a sequel to a 38-month joint investigation initiated by the FCCPC and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), into the conduct, privacy practices, and consumer data policies of the companies.
The companies approached the Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal, seeking to upturn the FCCPC’s fine but they were overruled by the tribunal. The tribunal said the commission complied with the necessary laws in arriving at the fine.
It awarded $35,000 to the FCCPC as the cost of investigation.
It is instructive that Meta had suffered similar legal defeats in the US, and some other countries.
UI Alumni Awards for Tunji Bello, LASU VC
Then came telecoms giant, MTN, that the commission also secured a legal victory over when a court affirmed its authority to regulate consumer protection in the telecommunications sector and indeed other sectors, in February, last year.
It was one of the company’s shareholders, Emeka Nnubia, that went to court on the wrong assumption that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is the sole regulator of the telecoms sector. NigeriaCurrent Affairs
Justice F.N. Ogazi of the Federal High Court in Lagos, ruled otherwise, and reaffirmed the commission’s authority to regulate competition and consumer protection across ALL (emphasis the commission’s Act, 2018) sectors, including telecommunications.
Then the United Bank for Africa (UBA) which also challenged the FCCPC’s powers to regulate the banking sector. The Federal High Court in Abuja, in April, 2026, also dismissed the bank’s lawsuit and affirmed the commission’s statutory mandate to investigate consumer complaints, even against commercial banks.
In the same month, Air Peace Limited was also floored by the commission when it challenged the commission’s authority to investigate consumer complaints within the aviation sector.
The case was a sequel to grievances filed by airline passengers over alleged non-refunded ticket fares, flight cancellations and other service-related issues. Justice Omotosho again affirmed the commission’s overarching powers to investigate complaints in all sectors of the economy.
It is instructive that the Abuja Federal High Court also struck out a suit filed by Multichoice, which attempted to restrain the FCCPC from investigating its DStv and GOtv subscription price hikes, in May, last year.
Also, on December 11, last year, the commission sealed the corporate headquarters of Ikeja Electric, after the company ignored several warnings and a seven-day Compliance Notice.
The trigger was Ikeja Electric’s failure to unbundle a single Maximum Demand (MD) account into individual units and restore power to a customer who had been in a blackout for over 30 months despite paying all charges.
The place was reopened on December 19, following an agreement signed by the company to address the issues.
For a commission that was established in January 2019 to look into consumer complaints, among others, it would appear FCCPC had been sleeping on its powers for about five years, until Bello took over. If only the commission itself could talk, there is no doubt that it would commend Bello for awakening its sleeping destiny and making it a commission of record in the country.
Bello holds a BSc (Hons) in Political Science from the University of Ibadan (1984), and a Master’s in International Law and Diplomacy (MILD), from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), in 1987. He also bagged a Bachelor of Law (Hons) from UNILAG in 2000 . He was called to the Nigerian Bar two years later, after successfully completing his programme at the Nigerian Law School. Politics
Unlike many other people in his shoes, Bello does not leave his friends behind. He is always there for them. Since one good turn deserves another, the friends and colleagues too do not joke with anything concerning him.
But, Bello’s selfless service is not only about his colleagues and friends but also the society and those who have one reason or the other to cross his path.
A significant example of his selfless service to society was his donation of a magnificent auditorium to the Epe Campus of Lagos State University (LASU), in August, last year.
The journey to building the edifice began in 2021 when he turned 60 years. Bello decided to build the auditorium rather than spend or encourage his friends and admirers to spend lavishly on birthday bash for him.
“Without wishing to sound sanctimonious or all-righteous, one point I like to seize this moment to make is the consequential choice between transient enjoyment and posterity. Thus, by choosing to invest the money through sowing the seed in the vineyard of knowledge, I believe we are invariably preserving my 60th birthday cake in a way that it will be shared and savoured by many generations to come”, he said at the commissioning of the building last August.
He added: “Besides, this is my humble way of supporting the argument that public purpose is served better by helping public universities fill the infrastructural gap.”
Bello has many awards to his credit. These include The Concord Press Award for Journalistic Excellence and Bravery; Concord Publishers Best Editorial Manager; and Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship, United States.
He is also a recipient of University of Ibadan Distinguished Alumnus Award and the University of Lagos Distinguished Alumni Achievers Award of Excellence. Bello was also honoured by the Ikeja, Lagos Branch, of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for his contribution to environmental sustenance in Lagos State. DistanceLearning
Married to Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, the Vice-Chancellor of LASU, their marriage is blessed with three children.
Bello has written one book and contributed to at least four others.
I wish him a happy birthday and God’s continued guidance in all he sets his hands on.
