Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), during an interview with Channels TV on the state of the February 25, 2023 election, made some controversial claims.
He was asked if Nigerians are to vote for him based on what he has done in Lagos or what his party (APC ) has done with Nigeria.
In his response, he distanced himself from the party and stated that his track record and capacity should speak for him and document the history of his performance.
Speaking about the economy of Lagos state, Tinubu claimed that “Lagos state has moved from the down, below number 102 or so then to the 3rd, 2nd, 5th largest economy in Africa”.
He also made another claim when comparing the economy of Nigeria in 2015 managed by PDP to the economy of Nigeria in 2019 managed by the APC.
“What was the situation of the economy in 2015? The oil prices were up. We were producing 2Billion barrels of crude oil a day. What is the situation now in 2019, we have a very big dip in the oil prices,” he said.
“The production went to 900 barrels from 2000 and this is a monolithic economy that depends on the oil production.”
CDD Election War Room looked into these claims, and here is what we found:
CLAIM I: Lagos state has moved from the number 102 or so to the 3rd, 2nd, 5th largest economy in Africa
Verification
Bola Tinubu’s running mate, Kashim Shettima, had also made similar claims on January 1, 2023, when invited to the Fashin Baki Hausa chat hosted by journalist, Bulama Bukarti.
In the interview, he said the aftermath of Tinubu’s rule in Lagos is that the former governor successfully transformed Lagos into the fifth-largest economy in Africa.
There have also been claims of Lagos being the third-largest economy in Africa. The CDD Election War Room had checked these claims and found that Lagos state is not Africa’s fifth largest economy but Lagos is at best the eighth largest economy on the continent.
CLAIM II: Crude oil production went to 900 barrels in 2019 from 2,000 barrels in 2015.
VERIFICATIONS:
In verifying the claim, CDD Election War Room sourced data from the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) on Nigeria’s crude oil production in 2015 and 2019.
Data from OPEC and visualized by Statista, Trading Economy, and Census and Economic Information Center (CEIC) Data, reputable global data analysis platforms, showed that Nigeria’s average annual production of crude oil in 2015 hovered around 1,874,000 barrels per day and in 2019 hovered around 1,870,000 barrel per day. This does not show a significant drop as Tinubu claimed.
According to CEIC data visualization, Nigeria’s crude oil production was an average of 1,707,000 barrels/day in 2015 while in 2019, there was an average production of 1,785,000 barrels per day.
According to Trading View data visualization, Nigeria’s crude oil production was an average of 1,717,000 barrels/day in 2015 while in 2019, there was an average oil production of 1,726,000 barrels/day.
Although there is a slight difference in the data visualization by Statista; Nigeria’s crude oil production was an average of 2,199,000 barrels/day in 2015 while in 2019, there was an average oil production of 2,101,000 barrels/day.
CONCLUSION
Considering the data by OPEC, Bola Tinubu was right about the drop but the figures he stated were totally incorrect. Also, Lagos state is not the 2nd, 3rd nor is it the 5th largest economy in Africa, but Lagos is the 8th largest economy on the continent.
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