I’m in this Ad and I don’t like it.

Breweries,Casefiles: Privacy | Larry Nwabueze v. Nigerian Breweries Plc.

Picture this.

You go out to watch a football game on a cool evening. You sit down, have a drink, watch a good game of football between fierce rivals, enjoy the music, and go home.

It was a good day, but that was about it. You don’t think about it any further.

Months later, someone tells you they have seen you on television. In an advert.

Your face is appearing in a Goldberg beer promotion on SuperSport, and the same video is circulating on social media. Thousands of people have watched it.

What could you possibly do?

On 26 October 2024, Larry Nwabueze and his wife went to Johnny Rockets Restaurant to watch Barcelona play Real Madrid in an El Clásico watch party sponsored by Nigerian Breweries. It was, by all accounts, the sort of evening one might expect from a branded football event; there was a match to watch, live music, drinks, cameras, and the general activity that comes with a company putting its brand in the middle of a social gathering.

Nwabueze, however, said that he had made a private reservation at the restaurant and had declined to participate when an event manager attempted to record him, making it clear that he did not want to be filmed.

Nigerian Breweries however, had a different account of what happened. The company said the event had been publicly advertised, that a notice had been displayed at the entrance informing attendees that they consented to being photographed and recorded by entering the event area, and that Nwabueze had nevertheless stayed, watched the match, enjoyed the live performance, and even consumed a Goldberg beer.

There might have been little more to the story if the cameras had simply captured him in the background of a photograph from the night. But that wasn’t what happened; the problem was what happened afterwards.

In January 2025, Nwabueze discovered that his image had been used in a Goldberg promotional video that had been aired on SuperSport and circulated on social media, including Goldberg's Instagram account, where it attracted more than 19,000 views. He said that the use of his image created the impression that he was associated with the brand as an ambassador, and after his solicitors demanded that the video be removed, that an apology be issued and that he be compensated, the dispute eventually found its way to the Lagos State High Court.

The question before the court was therefore not quite whether Nigerian Breweries was allowed to take photographs at a football watch party. It was whether a person who attends a public, branded event can be taken to have consented to the commercial use of his identifiable image simply because he entered the venue and remained there after a notice had been displayed.

Justice O. A. Okunuga's answer, in Larry Nwabueze v Nigerian Breweries Plc, was an important one for the developing law of privacy in Nigeria.

A photograph is not necessarily an endorsement.

Nigerian Breweries' defense rested substantially on the Crowd Release displayed at the event. The company said the notice made it clear that entering and remaining at the venue amounted to consent to being photographed, filmed, or recorded, and that the resulting material could be used by the company for promotional purposes connected with the event. It argued that Nwabueze had the option of not entering the designated area if he did not agree with those terms.

There was also a broader argument about privacy. The event was not a private dinner held behind closed doors but a publicly promoted gathering at a commercial establishment, with other attendees, photographers, and videographers around. Nigerian Breweries argued that someone attending such an event could not reasonably expect the ordinary activities taking place there to remain private, particularly when the event itself was designed around publicity and brand engagement.

The court did not completely reject that proposition. In fact, it accepted that a person's expectation of privacy is reduced when that person is in a public setting. What it rejected was the idea that this reduction in privacy settled the matter.

There is a difference between being visible to other people and surrendering control over the commercial use of your image. Nwabueze may have had a lower expectation that nobody would photograph him while he was at the event, but the subsequent use of his identifiable image in a Goldberg advertisement was a different exercise altogether. The court found that the commercial use of his image without authorization infringed his protected right to privacy.

That distinction is particularly important because the advertisement was not merely documenting what happened at the watch party. The footage was being used to promote a product, and the court considered that use sufficiently different from ordinary event coverage to require a separate consideration of consent.

The problem with the Crowd Release

This is where the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA) entered the picture.

Section 25(1)(a) of the Act provides that processing is lawful where the data subject has given, and has not withdrawn, consent for the specific purpose or purposes for which the personal data is to be processed. The Act also places the burden of proving consent on the data controller, provides that silence or inactivity does not constitute consent, and requires a request for consent to be made in clear and simple language and in an accessible format, with consent being affirmative rather than based on a pre-selected confirmation.

Nwabueze's argument, therefore, was not simply that he had been photographed without permission. It was that being present at the venue was not the same thing as giving affirmative consent to a specific commercial use of his image. His lawyers argued that the Crowd Release did not satisfy the requirements of the Act, particularly because the company was ultimately using his image in promotional material.

The court agreed.

There was another wrinkle, and it is an important one. Nigerian Breweries relied on Article 17(8)(a) of the General Application and Implementation Directive, or GAID, which addresses photographs taken at public events. The provision recognizes that participation in a public event may amount to constructive or implied consent to images being taken and used for reporting, journalistic or other permitted purposes, but expressly distinguishes profit- or commerce-oriented advertising, for which express consent is required.

There was just one problem with relying on the GAID in this case: the event happened before the GAID took effect.

The El Clásico event took place on 26 October 2024, while the GAID became effective on 19 September 2025. The court therefore held that the Directive could not retrospectively govern an event that had already taken place, applying the general principle that legislation should not be given retrospective operation unless its language clearly requires it.

Interestingly, however, the GAID still provided useful confirmation of the court's approach. Even under the newer framework, participation in a public event does not automatically amount to consent to the commercial exploitation of an identifiable person's image.

What about legitimate interest?

Nigerian Breweries also relied on legitimate interest, arguing that it had a legitimate commercial interest in documenting and promoting its brand, products, and sponsored events, and that the processing of images was necessary for marketing, consumer engagement, and sponsorship activities.

The court rejected that argument in the circumstances of the case.

Its reasoning was that legitimate interest could not override the fundamental freedom and proprietary control that a data subject has over his image where commercial advertising is involved and consent could reasonably have been obtained.

That is perhaps the most commercially significant part of the decision. A company cannot necessarily point to a genuine business purpose and treat that purpose as the end of the analysis. There may well be a legitimate interest in photographing an event, documenting it, and publishing images of the occasion, but the further step of using an identifiable attendee's image to promote a product raises a different question, particularly where the person has not affirmatively agreed to that use.

The court ultimately declared the use of Nwabueze's image unconstitutional and unlawful, ordered Nigerian Breweries to permanently remove his images from the platforms on which they appeared, restrained further use of his images for advertising or other purposes, and awarded him ₦10 million in general damages, together with ₦500,000 in costs.

On Consent and Commercial Use

For a long time, privacy was intuitively understood in terms of physical space: your home, your room, your correspondence, and the things you did away from public view. Section 37 of the Constitution still expresses that idea in familiar terms, protecting the privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations, and telegraphic communications.

But modern privacy disputes increasingly concern things that are perfectly visible to other people.

Your face is visible; your name is visible; your telephone number may be visible.

Your photograph may even have been taken in a room full of hundreds of people.

The difficult question is what someone else is allowed to do with that information once they have it.

Nwabueze v Nigerian Breweries does not say that people have an absolute right not to be photographed in public. The court expressly recognised that an individual has a reduced expectation of privacy in a public setting. What it does say is that the loss of complete privacy in a public space does not amount to a blank cheque for commercial exploitation.

That distinction will become increasingly important as brands, platforms, and other organizations collect more information about people as part of ordinary commercial activity.

You can attend the watch party or appear in the crowd and perhaps even end up in the event photographs.

But, at least according to the Lagos State High Court in this case, that does not necessarily mean you have agreed to become the face of an advert.

Citation: Larry Nwabueze v. Nigerian Breweries Plc, Suit No. ID/19573MFHR/2025 (High Court of Lagos State, Okunuga J, 26 May 2026), reported in Nigerian Privacy Law Report (2026) Vol. 5.