Nigeria Elections 2023: Fact-Checking Candidates’ Claims

Poverty, unemployment and insecurity are among the issues that have dominated the campaigns

With Nigeria’s presidential election looming, candidates seeking to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari have made claims on key issues.

We looked at statements by Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), as well as opposition politicians Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labor Party.

Peter Obi: “While India’s poverty rate is around 16%, Nigeria’s is around 63%… classed as multidimensional poor”

Peter Obi (middle) claims that Nigeria has more people living in absolute poverty than India

Mr. Obi drew data from two different sources in making this claim.

The figure for India (16.4%) comes from the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, published in 2022 with the support of the United Nations and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

It assesses poverty in more than 100 developing countries using 10 indicators on health, education and standard of living.

While the figure for India is correct, the figure in the same report for Nigeria is 46.4% – not the 63% mentioned by Mr Obi.

This figure comes from another study – a national survey known as the Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Survey (also published last year).

Despite the similar name, it is not synonymous with the global study and it would be misleading to use information from the two studies side-by-side, according to Prof Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

It is difficult to accurately estimate the number of Nigerians living in poverty

A national index is a country-specific measure of poverty and in most cases tailored to each country’s situation, and for Nigeria it has additional indicators that are not included in the global study, adds Prof. Alkire.

And we also need to be aware that the data from the global study are from different years – the number for Nigeria is from 2018 and that for India is from 2019-21.

This raises further questions as to whether this is a valid comparison given that the Nigerian data pre-dates the Covid pandemic.

World Bank researchers point out that assessing poverty trends in Nigeria has long been difficult due to changing measurement methods.

Mr Obi has also claimed Nigeria has “overtaken India as home to the largest pool of absolutely poor people in the world”.

The World Poverty Clock, which tracks countries’ progress in ending extreme poverty, showed for the first time that Nigeria is ahead of India in 2018 in terms of people living in extreme poverty.

The latest estimates place 71 million people living in extreme poverty (living on less than $1.90 a day) in Nigeria, compared to 44 million in India.

Atiku Abubakar: “In just five years between 2015 and 2020, the number of full-time workers fell by 54% – from 68 million to 31 million people”

People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar with his hands raised during a campaign rally in Kano, northwestern Nigeria

Mr Atiku Abubakar of the opposition PDP, who was vice president from 1999 to 2007, said so in January.

He’s right about the number of full-time workers in 2020, according to official figures.

But his 2015 figure also includes those defined as underemployed – working fewer hours than they would like or doing work that doesn’t fully utilize their abilities.

In 2015, according to the government’s Unemployment/Underemployment Report, there were 55 million full-time workers, which would mean that the correct figure for the drop in employment is 44%.

Bola Tinubu: ‘[Insecurity has] actually reduced … we [had] Flags of foreign jihadists in Nigeria, that’s no more’

Bola Tinubu (pictured) has defended President Buhari’s record

Insecurity was a key campaign issue, particularly the fight against Islamist militant groups like Boko Haram.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Mr Tinubu of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) tried to defend the record of current President Muhammadu Buhari, his party leader.

He claimed foreign jihadists were operating in four states when Mr Buhari took over in 2015 and that is no longer the case. “It’s long gone,” he said.

Election graphic in Nigeria

Boko Haram has indeed been weakened and driven out of much of the territory it previously controlled, but other groups have grown stronger during this period, including the Islamic State of West Africa (Iswap) province, which has seceded from Boko Haram.

David Malet of the American University in Washington DC, who has been researching foreign fighters since 2005, says it’s difficult to say how many there are in Nigeria, but he cautions it’s still a problem.

“With Islamic State recruitment today, there is certainly more in neighboring countries in the region, so it’s likely that there is more in Nigeria as well,” he told the BBC.

The government also faces other security-related challenges – including banditry, kidnappings and conflicts involving pastoralists and farming communities, as well as a separatist insurgency in the southeast.

“Overall, Nigeria remained one of the most violent countries in Africa over the past year,” according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

Reporting by Peter Mwai, Chiagozie Nwonwu and Fauzziyah Tukur

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