…Faults Aare Fatai Odeshile-Led Board of Trustees for Lending Their Names To “Misleading and Deceptive” Publication Without First Engaging Stakeholders
The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) has fired back at the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), issuing a detailed and strongly worded press statement, that challenges virtually every major claim in ADVAN’s widely publicised open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, including ADVAN’s assertion that its members control over 90 percent of Nigeria’s estimated ₦800 billion annual advertising spend, and that companies have been exiting Nigeria as a direct result of ARCON’s industry reforms.
The statement, signed by ARCON’s Director-General, Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo, FCA, fnimn, frpa, described ADVAN’s letter, which was signed by the association’s Board of Trustees and addressed directly to the Presidency — as a calculated campaign of “misinformation, disinformation, and manipulation” designed to halt ongoing reforms that ARCON says are rooted in the Federal Government’s Nigerian First Policy and the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Tinubu administration.
The N800 Billion Claim: ARCON Says the Numbers Don’t Add Up
Central to ARCON’s rebuttal is a frontal challenge to one of the most important points raised in ADVAN’s open letter. In that letter, ADVAN described itself as the voice of brand owners responsible for over 90 percent of Nigeria’s estimated ₦800 billion annual marketing spend, an amount it used to show its significance to the Nigerian economy and to lend weight to its demand for presidential intervention.
ARCON has dismissed that claim as a fabrication intended to project relevance and exert pressure on the government. “ADVAN members do not contribute 90% of the Nigerian advertising industry spend, nor do they conduct business worth ₦800 billion as claimed,” the statement reads. “ADVAN members contribute less than 10% of the advertising industry spend, and its membership has declined in recent times due to poor leadership.”
To sharpen the point, ARCON’s statement directly called out ADVAN President, Mr. Osamede Uwubanmwen, declaring that the employer and organisation where Uwubanmwen currently works “cannot boast of ₦1 million in annual advertising spend, yet they claim that its members spend over ₦800 billion annually on advertising.”
ARCON went further to challenge ADVAN to prove its claims by making its membership list and individual advertising spend data available to the public. “We challenge ADVAN to publish its active membership list and advertising spend,” the statement said, noting that ADVAN’s unwillingness to do so speaks volumes about the accuracy of its figures.
The regulator’s statement also raised questions about the association’s internal governance, noting that given the ADVAN President’s company’s “very poor advertising spend and his retention in office, it is either that the ADVAN President is acting on behalf of some organisations that chose to use ADVAN to fight the industry reforms, or that ADVAN members are nonchalant about the association’s leadership.”
“Publish Names of Companies That Have Left Nigeria Because of Industry Reforms”, ARCON Dares ADVAN
On the equally charged allegation that ARCON’s regulatory posture has triggered a decline in advertising investment and caused organisations to exit the Nigerian market, ARCON challenged ADVAN to substantiate the claim with data. “ADVAN is challenged to provide verified data on the alleged decline in advertising spend, as well as publish the names of organisations that have exited Nigeria because of the industry reforms,” the statement declared.
ARCON questioned the logic of the allegation, asking rhetorically why any responsible organisation would leave a country simply because it was asked to use citizens of that country in its advertisement content, or because it was required to pay outstanding advertising debts as and when due. The regulator argued that the reality on the ground is the opposite of what ADVAN painted. “Rather than decline as alleged, the industry has witnessed growth and new investments,” the statement said.
To further ground its position in credible evidence, ARCON revealed that it collaborated with the Heads of Advertising Sectoral Group (HASG) to commission PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s most recognised global professional services firms, to conduct independent research on advertising industry spend and the contribution of advertising to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product. The resulting report was presented to industry stakeholders and published in the media. ARCON challenged ADVAN to engage with or counter the PwC report rather than make unsupported claims to the Presidency.
The Reforms at the Centre of the Storm
To properly contextualise the dispute, ARCON’s statement walked through the specific reform measures that have drawn ADVAN’s ire, and offered its own account of each.
Use of Nigerian talent in advertisements: ARCON explained that a review of advertising content targeting the Nigerian market revealed that many advertisers had been using foreign models, foreign voice-over artists, and in some cases, producing content entirely outside the country. This, ARCON argued, denied Nigerians and the Nigerian economy the economic benefits and revenue that advertising activity generates. In line with the Federal Government’s Nigerian First Policy, ARCON directed that all advertisements targeting the Nigerian market must use Nigerian talent and be produced locally, except where circumstances make this impracticable. According to it, ADVAN opposed this directive, and ARCON says that after internal lobbying efforts failed, ADVAN “resorted to a media war and misinformation.”
On the credit policy and 45-day payment cycle: ARCON highlighted what it described as a longstanding and widely acknowledged crisis of media debt in the Nigerian advertising industry where debts owed not just to advertising agencies, but primarily to broadcast and print media houses, out-of-home (OOH) platforms, production companies, and third-party vendors. ARCON adopted a 45-day payment cycle, consistent with global industry standards as recommended by the Advertising Industry Standards of Practice (AISoP) Committee. When ADVAN lobbied ARCON to suspend this policy and allow its members to operate outside the payment framework, ARCON refused. ADVAN characterised the refusal as over-regulation and interference with private contracts. ARCON’s statement, pointedly, noted that “some members of ADVAN prepay foreign media houses but owe local media houses with impunity.”
On the disengagement protocol: ARCON also addressed ADVAN’s resistance to its requirement that advertisers settle all outstanding debts with their advertising agencies before moving accounts. ARCON said it was on record that some ADVAN members had been disengaging their agencies without formal closure or payment of outstanding obligations — a practice that had contributed to unethical conduct and industry-wide debt. When ARCON moved to address this, ADVAN again cried over-regulation.
PEBEC’s 3% Score: ARCON Rejects the Rating
ADVAN’s open letter to the President also cited a 2025 Business Facilitation Act (BFA) Performance Report, issued by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), which ranked ARCON last out of 69 federal agencies with a score of just 3.0 percent. ADVAN leveraged this data as independent government validation of its complaints.
ARCON has rejected this characterisation, describing the PEBEC report as biased and alleging that ADVAN has a long-standing alliance with PEBEC that it has sought to weaponise against the regulator. “ADVAN is a long-time ally of PEBEC and has tried to use PEBEC to undermine ARCON’s policies and oversight functions,” the statement read, adding that some multinationals had also sent petitions to PEBEC as part of a strategy to “interfere in and decimate ARCON’s oversight powers and mandate.”
ARCON maintained that its actual performance report was presented during the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation’s sessions on Presidential Performance and Ministerial Deliverables, and that its records are available at the Ministry for independent fact-checking. “ARCON does not and cannot score 3% in performance as stated by PEBEC and publicised by ADVAN,” the statement asserted.
ARCON Faults Aare Fatai Odeshile-Led Trustees for Bypassing Established Channels
In one of its most direct rebukes, ARCON’s statement took specific aim at the Board of Trustees of ADVAN led by Aare Fatai Odeshil for signing and lending institutional credibility to what the regulator described as a publication riddled with inaccuracies and false claims. “It is rather unfortunate that the Aare Fatai Odeshile-led Trustees of ADVAN allowed the leadership of ADVAN to involve them in this manipulative and misinformation web,” the statement said.
ARCON expressed concern that ADVAN’s Board of Trustees which, by its own mandate, functions as a body of elder statesmen within the association chose to bypass both ARCON and its supervisory Ministry for possible engagement before attaching their names to the open letter. The statement described the publication as “misleading and deceptive” and said it “reflects poorly on the entire leadership of ADVAN. This approach is truly regrettable and worrisome,” ARCON added.
Sub Judice Concerns: Why Take Court Matters to the Media?
ARCON’s statement also flagged a procedural concern about ADVAN’s decision to go public with its grievances at all. According to the regulator, ADVAN has filed multiple lawsuits against ARCON at the Federal High Court, challenging both the advertising industry reforms and the constitutionality of ARCON’s oversight functions. Many of the issues raised in ADVAN’s open letter are, ARCON says, already part of those pending cases, making them sub judice matters that should properly be resolved by the court rather than adjudicated in the media.
“If a case is sub judice, why take it to the media?” the statement asked, accusing ADVAN of seeking to obstruct and halt the ongoing reforms through public pressure after failing to achieve its objectives through the courts.
ARCON’s rebuttal also addressed ADVAN’s claim of being excluded from industry engagement, turning the narrative around to point out that it is ADVAN, not ARCON, that has chosen to absent itself from key platforms.
According to ARCON, ADVAN voluntarily withdrew from the Heads of Advertising Sectoral Group (HASG), the highest self-regulatory body in the Nigerian advertising industry. ADVAN declined to participate in the National Advertising Conference, even as many of its individual members attended in their personal and organisational capacities. ADVAN also declined to participate in the Advertising Industry Colloquium, even as some advertisers sponsored and participated in the programme.
Despite all of this, ARCON noted that ADVAN still maintains a representative on the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP), the statutory body responsible for vetting advertisements, making ADVAN’s claim of exclusion difficult to sustain. ARCON’s position is that ADVAN has effectively made the suspension of all ongoing reforms a condition for its participation, a condition the regulator has declined to meet.
“ADVAN wants ARCON to suspend the advertising industry reforms as a condition for participating in any engagement and yet complains of non-inclusion,” the statement said.
Concluding its statement, ARCON offered a broad defence of the public interest value of its reforms. The regulator said it has championed the use of Nigerians in all advertising and marketing communications targeting the Nigerian market, promoted the use of Nigerian companies in advertisement production, and resolved longstanding media debt disputes that had weighed on the industry’s growth for years.
“The era of lawless advertising with impunity is over,” the statement declared, characterising ADVAN as “the only notoriously combative association” in an industry that counts over ten associations and stakeholder groups, one whose combativeness, ARCON argues, is driven not by industry interest but by a desire to protect practices that have historically disadvantaged Nigerian media owners, practitioners, and creatives.
“ARCON will resist all attempts and blackmail by ADVAN or any other group(s) to halt the ongoing advertising industry reforms,” Dr. Fadolapo wrote in closing. “ARCON will remain focused and resolute in promoting the Nigerian First Policy and aligning with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the present administration.”