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  • Features
  • Updated: December 16, 2022

2023: How Presidential Candidates Have Bombarded The Polity With False Claims (PART II)

2023: How Presidential Candidates Have Bombarded The Polity

If you have not read the first part of this series, you have missed how we separated facts from fiction out of the statements made by Adewole Adebayo, Atiku Abubakar, and  Bola Tinubu; a piece you need to read.

Progressing on our mission to unclothe the false statements, Omoyele Sowore, Peter Obi, and Rabiu Kwankwaso are in the spotlight.

Omoyele Sowore, African Action Congress (AAC)

Despite Sowore's activism and media entrepreneurship background, he also made incredible claims as he pushed his presidential aspiration up.

He revealed at a presidential debate that the Nigerian government had spent US$16 billion on electricity and still failed to solve the problem. 

Sowore joins 2023 presidential race | Premium Times Nigeria

This has been long-lasting fake news. Its purveyors use it to reference the spending of president Olusegun Obasanjo's administration with his National Independent Power Projects between 1999 and 2007. 

This is incontestably false because no publicly available official records support the claim.

A 2017 Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) report revealed that the Obasanjo administration spent $10 billion and not $16 billion on power projects.

Also in 2018, the accused Obasanjo shared the findings of a 2007 probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which showed lower spending on the projects: about N1.23 trillion (US$9.64 billion) to the generally believed figures. 

6 NIPP plants, 22 new substations added to power grid in 6 years — Report -  Daily Trust

We, however, gathered that about N360.7 billion ($2.8 billion at the official exchange rate of N127.5 to $1 in May 2007) had been paid out when Obasanjo left office.

The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (formerly the National Electric Power Authority), which supervised the projects, received N273.65 billion from 1999 to 2007.

That comes to $2.15 billion, using the average 2007 exchange rate.

This still needs to add up to the $16 billion claimed by Sowore.

Elsewhere, Sowore said President Muhammadu Buhari promised to reduce the jet fleet, but he kept increasing it. This is a misleading allegation.

AllNews Nigeria understands that President Buhari made moves to inspect the presidential air fleet to cut down on waste in 2015.

Consequently, two planes from the fleet were put up for sale a year later.

And In September 2020, the presidency was desperate to sell off another aircraft. 

Much ado about presidential aircraft | The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria  and World News — Features — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World  News

Even though there is no evidence that any of the sales have gone through, there is no verifiable evidence to bank on that the Buhari administration has added any new planes to the presidential fleet.

Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP)

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party is caught in the web of giving spurious facts too. 

At a town hall meeting, he said the 2021 budget was N21 trillion, with an N11 trillion deficit.

He answered questions on how he would reduce budget deficits if elected as Nigeria's president.

Why is this statement important?

A deficit is a difference between what a government earns and what it spends.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines deficit as an excess of expenditure over revenue.

2023: Chatham House Invites Peter Obi For Election Conversation – Channels  Television

Therefore, it is important that a leader determined to reposition Nigeria's economic fortunes get his facts right, as stated by economic researchers who spoke with our correspondent.

Contrary to Obi's claims, the budget office documents reveal that N13.6 trillion was budgeted for the 2021 budget, not N21 trillion.

The budget deficit for that year was also lower, at N5.6 trillion.

Not only that, but Obi also said that Israel's exports in 2021 were valued at $59.8 billion. This is far from the truth.

He interconnected Nigeria's earnings from its exports to those of the Middle Eastern country of Israel, where he said its exports in 2021 were worth $59.8 billion.

But according to the World Bank, Israel's export earnings in 2021 were pegged at $143 billion. 

He also said that Vietnam's is over $350 billion, while official data says $336.31 billion.

Obi made a valid argument on the importance of Nigeria consolidating on exports but with incorrect statistics.

Where did Peter Obi get his facts from when he said, "Today, we have an installed capacity of 12,500 MW"?

According to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Nigeria had a total installed capacity of 10,396 megawatts (MW) in 2017, with the available capacity being 6,056 MW.

Explaining these terms to our desk Funsho Martins, an electrical engineer said installed capacity is the maximum theoretical electricity output when power generation operates at 100%.

"Effective capacity is the expected output when operating constraints are considered", he added.

In 2018, installed capacity was 12,522MW. In 2022, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo explained that the country's installed capacity was more than 18,000 MW.

Even though the commission has yet to release its official data for 2022, how did Petet Obi come out with his?

The answer is Obi's assertion is unproven and most likely to be false.

13 of Nigeria's 29 crude oil terminals record low outputs between July and  September - Nairametrics

It was not a slip of the tongue when Obi said again that Oil is 50% of government revenue n Nigeria.

This is incorrect because he needed to give a time frame. 

Judging from the data collected by our fact check desk from the Central Bank for the second quarter of 2022, non-oil income accounted for 59.5% of Nigeria's revenue, 

Oil was never Nugeria's primary revenue in 2022 because it constituted only 40.5%, similar to the first quarter. 

Rabiu Kwankwaso, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP)

The Kwankwasiyyah train is also a culprit. Rabiu Kwankwaso said on live TV that he never borrowed money when he was governor of Kano State.

Kwankwaso to Voters: Reject PDP, APC, They've Failed Nigeria – THISDAYLIVE

He spent two separate terms in office from 1999 to 2003 and 2011 to 2015. 

He is campaigning on the track record that he didn't borrow money to run his government which is untrue considering the available facts. 

 A determined search revealed that he borrowed N4.1 billion from pension funds to build the Bandirawo, Amana and Kwankwasiya housing estates, one of his gubernatorial legacies.

Kano Estates Built With N4.1 Billion Pension Fund Rot Away

On a more factual front, data from the country's Debt Management Office (DMO) indicate that Kano State's domestic debt, owed to Nigerian banks, increased by nearly N60 billion from 2011 to 2015 when he was governor.

DMO published a report that showed Kano's domestic debt was N5.87 billion at the end of December 2011.

By the end of December 2015, it had jumped to N65 billion. Kwankwaso left office on 29 May 2015.

 Since the DMO only discloses state-level data at the end of the year, we can't ascertain the exact debt at his departure.

On this debt mantra, Kwankwaso made another false claim.

He said he "didn't leave debt in my two terms in office as the governor of Kano state", which is incorrect.

Data from the debt office shows the state owed $59.8 million to external creditors as of 30 June 2015 – a month after he left the office. 

Kwankwaso's successor, Umar Ganduje, told journalists two days after he became governor that Kwankwaso's administration left the state with over N300 billion in debt. 

It is also exaggerated that he said he spent more than the 25% Unesco recommendation funding for education while serving as Kano governor.

 The UN agency never made such a recommendation. 

Instead, the only benchmark was a 2015 global education monitoring report commissioned by Unesco, which proposed 4% to 6% of countries' gross national product, or 15% to 20% of their national budget, on education. 

Unesco has said the position did not represent its official standpoint.

Taking the bull by the horn, it should be stated that Kwankwaso did not set aside up to 25% of Kano's budget for education. 

Budget data on the Kano state website dates back only to 2016.

But we found other documents online that show how much was budgeted for education in Kano under Kwankwaso's administration. 

In his 2012 budget speech to the state assembly, Kwankwaso proposed a total budget of N210.38 billion. 

The N35 billion was 16.6% of the total budget. N221.62 billion was eventually approved, with education getting a total of N35.5 billion or 15.9%.

In the last budget by Kwankwaso in 2015, he earmarked N29.55 billion for the education ministry and N18.83 billion for the higher education ministry.

That meant the total education budget was N48.38 billion. 

The N48.38 billion amounted to 23% of Kano's total budget of N210 billion in 2015. 

2023 is important to Nigeria's democracy and national government, but it is baffling that politicians who want to mount the ladder next year feed us with some ingenuine information. 

A special thanks to Africa Check for providing valuable resources used for these findings.

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