Agbabiaka Ahmed, who is a member of the Youth Mobilization for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, has claimed that Lagos is the only state in Nigeria that is economically viable and independent.
Ahmed disclosed this during an interactive session involving representatives of the opposing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party on Channels Television’s Rubbin’ Mind on Sunday, February 12, 2023.
The spokespersons of the three leading political parties in the 2023 presidential race were asked to speak on the bid of their respective candidates as it is a few days to the election.
“Nobody will deny the fact that Lagos is the only state that is economically viable and independent in this country as we speak right now,” Ahmed said while speaking on the records of Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state and the presidential candidate of the APC.
Claim: Lagos is the only economically viable state in Nigeria
Verification
Checks by the CDD Election War Room revealed that the claim is false. A state is said to be economically viable if it can meet its obligations without allocation from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).
The 2022 edition of the annual State of States report by BudgIT, shows that Rivers tops the list of 36 states in fiscal sustainability ranking.
Rivers state maintained its overall fiscal performance ranking of the 1st position from the previous year 2021, according to the report.
Only Lagos and Rivers states were said to have generated more than enough revenues internally to take care of their operating expenses.
Meanwhile, states performance on Index A put Lagos 1st with 0.82 while Rivers came 2nd with 0.83.
The states were ranked on Index A based on their limited dependence on distributed federal revenue for their operations. This shows how viable they are in terms of their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Also, states performance on Index B put Rivers 1st with 0.48 while Kaduna came 2nd with 0.50. Lagos was ranked 17 on the list with 0.80.
The states were ranked on Index B based on the public revenue they have left to implement the capital expenditure components of their budgets after settling debts and their government’s operating expenses.
Verdict:
The claim that Lagos is the only economically viable state in Nigeria is false; credible data shows that Rivers state is also economically viable.