By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

VICE Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi, evidently gave out the greatest number of facts and figures at the recently organised vice presidential debate, but The ICIR has found that a good number of them were false, grossly exaggerated or only partly true.

The debate, which featured five running mates for the 2019 general elections was put together by the Nigeria Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON).

Others who participated include Yemi Osinbajo of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ganiyu Galadima of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Khadijah Abdullahi-Iya of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) and Umma Abdullahi-Getso of the Young Progressives Party (YPP).

In this fact-check, The ICIR shares its findings on thirteen sets of claims given by the PDP candidate.

Claim: Nigeria’s poverty rate grows at 6% per minute

“We now live in a country where we have the highest number of poor people in any nations, 87 million, and growing 6 per cent every minute,” he said.

Not only is this claim outrageous on the face value, but it is also not true. According to the Brookings Institution, “each April and October, the World Poverty Clock data are updated to take into account new household surveys and new projections on country economic growth from the International Monetary Funds’s World Economic Outlook” and these data form the foundation for poverty trajectories computed for 188 countries across the world.

Today, the clock says we have 90.7 million Nigerians who are extremely poor — that is, 46.4 per cent of a population of 195.5 million. Data highlights from the clock, Brookings noted in June, show that “extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute”. It is possible this is how the PDP vice presidential candidate had intended to phrase his statement.

Verdict: The claim is false. If we follow the premise of Nigeria’s poverty rate growing by 6 per cent every minute, it means by the fourteenth minute, the entire population (assuming even that it grows to 205.8 million) will be extremely poor.

Claim: Nigeria dropped on HDI from 152 to 157 …

He said: “Our HDI has dropped from 152 to 157, our global competitive index has dropped from 124 to 127. In terrorism, we have moved from seven to number three behind Iran and Afghanistan.”

Nigeria ranked 152 out of 173 countries according to 2015 Human Development Report developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). And in the latest report of 2018, the country has dropped to 157 out of 189 countries. It should be noted however that the human development index value improved from 0.514 in 2015 to 0.532 in 2018.

According to World Economic Forum’s 2015-16 Global Competitiveness Report, Nigeria ranked 124 out of 140 countries, an improvement from the 127th position of the previous year. In the 2017-2018 report, which is the latest, the country now ranks 125th out of 137 countries. Nigeria’s score also dropped from 3.46 to 3.30. Nigeria had ranked 127 in the 2016-2017 report.

For the Global Terrorism Index, prepared annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, Nigeria’s position has not shifted since 2015. In the 2015 report, Nigeria was ranked 3rd out of 129 countries and, in the 2018 report, Nigeria again ranks 3rd out of 138 countries, just behind Afghanistan and Iraq (— not Iran as Obi said). The country’s performance has, however, improved from 9.213 in 2015 to 8.660 in the latest report.

Verdict: The claim is partly true. While Obi is right about Nigeria’s worsening performance — in relation to the rest of the world — on the first two indices, he is wrong with respect to terrorism.

Claim: Nigeria uses over 50 per cent of revenue for debt management and owes N22.7 trillion

He said: “Today we are virtually at a level where our debt is not sustainable because we are using over 50 per cent of our revenues to service debt, which means we don’t even have enough to be able to do infrastructural projects that are highly needed in this country.”

The latest figure on Nigeria’s public debt stock as at June 30, 2018, is available on the website of the Debt Management Office (DMO), which centrally coordinates the management of the country’s debt. According to the report, the total domestic and external debts owed by the federal government, state governments and the Federal Capital Territory stand at N22.38 trillion.

When it comes to debt servicing, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the country spends more than 50 per cent of its revenue on servicing. This was according to Amine Mati, the Senior Resident Representative and Mission Chief for Nigeria, when he presented the “Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa – Capital Flows and the Future of Work” in Abuja in November.

The ICIR has, however, gone through the said IMF report and could not find any part which supports this claim by Mati. While he was correct to say Nigeria’s growth rate for 2018 is 1.9 per cent, the report does not specifically mention Nigeria’s rate of debt servicing to revenue. But it has two indices on government debt as a per cent of GDP (24.8) and external, official debt as a per cent of GDP (8.2).

The DMO had said in January that Nigeria’s spending on debt servicing stands at 34.02 per cent of revenue — as likewise noted in its 2017 Report of the Annual National Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA), the latest of such reports.

A look at the approved budget for 2018 confirms this claim by the DMO. The total of expected oil and non-revenue is N7.17 trillion and the total debt service is N2 trillion, thus making the percentage 28.1 per cent. But we will arrive at 30.5 per cent if we use the proposed oil revenue of N2.4 trillion.

Verdict: The claim is partly true. While the figure on Nigeria’s debt stock is true, the statement about the country’s debt servicing as a per cent of revenue is inconsistent with figures from the DMO and budgetary instrument.

Claim: Bank loans are about 15 per cent of GDP… China is 250 per cent of GDP

“Your banks today, all the loans they have given are about 15 per cent of your GDP, when other countries are doing 50, 100 percent. China alone is doing 250 per cent on their GDP as credits to businesses, to private sector,” Obi said, while answering a question on driving investments to the economy.

According to data sourced from the IMF and made available on TradingEconomics, which provides more than 20 million economic indicators for 196 countries, in Nigeria, domestic credit provided by the bank sector as a per cent of the GDP for 2017 is 26.56 per cent. For China, the figure stands at 215 per cent.

Verdict: The claim is exaggerated.

Claim: In 2015, we attracted $21 billion in FDI, and only 12 last year …

“In 2015, we were attracting $21 billion in foreign direct investment. We attracted only 12 last year. Our GDP was 520 in 2015 and per capita was 2,500. Today, it is under 1,900,” the PDP candidate said in justifying his point that fighting corruption is not an economic policy.

In 2014, we generated $21bn in FDI, in 2017, Nigeria attracted only $12bn. Unemployment & underemployment was 24% in 2014. In 2017 it is now 40%. Even our stock market has lost over N2Trillion in one year. You can’t shut down your shop and be chasing criminals. #2019Debate

— Peter Obi (@PeterObi) December 15, 2018

On Foreign Direct Investment, according to records of the World Bank, Nigeria’s FDI started going downhill from $8.8 billion in 2011 to $3.1 billion in 2015. In 2016, it rose to $4.4 billion and was $3.5 billion in 2017. We have similar data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, broken down into various quarters.

Information on the IMF website states that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in 2015 was $2,763, in 2016 it dropped to $2,207, and it dropped even further to $1,994 in 2017. The GDP per capita, in 2018, has however risen to $2,050, and the IMF projects that it will continue to rise till it gets to $3,317 in 2023. IMF reports also that Nigeria’s GDP in 2015 was $494 billion, and not $520 billion.

Verdict: The claims are false. The FDI figures were grossly exaggerated. Also, while the GDP per capita in 2015 and 2018 were understated, the GDP of 2015 was exaggerated.

Claim: Nigeria has only 2 million vehicles, 10 per 1000

He said: “It [subsidy] is a waste… what are you actually subsidising? Look at it. Nigeria has one of the low car ownership in the world. It is 10 per thousand. So we have only two million vehicles, and you are paying almost a trillion when we have 87 million people that are poor.”

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s estimated vehicle population as at the second quarter of 2018 is 11,760,871, and the vehicle per population ration was put at 0.06 (as against Obi’s 0.01).

In 2017, commercial vehicles accounted for 53.8 per cent of the total vehicle population, private vehicles accounted for 44.5 per cent, government vehicles accounted for 1.65 per cent and diplomat vehicles made up to for 0.1 per cent.

Verdict: The claim is false and grossly exaggerated.

Claim: 40 per cent of the GDPs of China, Indonesia and Malaysia from manufacturing

“No country that is doing well… If you look at the GDP of China, 40 per cent is from manufacturing, Indonesia 40 percent, Malaysia 40 percent. Even in the western world… yours is under eight, and your factories are closing down,” he said.

According to 2017 data from the World Bank, while the manufacturing sector contributes 29.3 per cent to China’s GDP, it contributes 20.12 per cent to Indonesia’s GDP and 22.3 per cent to Malaysia’s GDP — none of the figures as high as that cited by the PDP candidate.

Obi also said the contribution of Nigeria’s manufacturing sector to the GDP is “under eight per cent”, but the World Bank records put it at 8.74 per cent.

Verdict: The claims are false.

Claim: Total bank loans today is N19tn and only 0.5% goes to SMEs

He said: “You can look at your loan portfolios. Today, the total loan from the banks is N19 trillion, and only … 0.5 per cent of that goes to your SMEs, where in the countries it is about 20 percent.”

It is the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Statistical Bulletin on Financial Statistics that provides official figures on bank loans and what percentage goes to small-scale enterprises. According to the latest bulletin of 2017, in the year’s fourth quarter, the amount of commercial bank loans that went to the private sector was N16.2 trillion.

Out of this, N10.7 billion went to small-scale enterprises, which amounts to 0.1 per cent. The only periods when the percentage increased between 2014 and 2017 was in the second quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2017 when it was 0.2 and 1.7 per cent respectively.

Verdict: The claim is exaggerated.

Claim: The power generation in Indonesia is 50,000 for 250 million people… 

“…If you can support the SMEs properly and be able to work on your manufacturing, which then leads to the issues of power, because what we are generating today is too low. Look at your competitors, the lowest that you can see in the MIND countries is Indonesia that is generating 50,000 for 250 million people and you are generating about 4,000 for 200 million,” Obi said.

To begin with, the current population of Indonesia, based on the latest United Nations estimate, is  268 million.

Then according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, by the end of 2016, Indonesia’s “installed generation capacity was 58,541 MW, with 40,461 MW (75%) generated by state-owned National Electric Company (PLN) and the remainders, 13,254 MW and 2,434 MW are produced by independent power producers (IPPs) and private power utility (PPUs) respectively”.

It is not clear what Obi meant by “MIND countries” or what exactly he said — perhaps it was an acronym for emerging economies such as “BRICs” is used to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Verdict: The claims are inaccurate and outdated.

Claim: African trade today is less than 9% … Oil gives 80% of our forex

“African trade today is less than nice percent, and ff we get it right it can go as high as 30 per cent or 40 percent. The foreign exchange you are saying today you’re now earning from oil, oil now gives you 80 per cent of your foreign exchange, when in effect if you do the right things, you can have twice than coming from manufacturing,” he said, while commenting on the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.

The 2018 African Trade Report developed by the African Export-Import Bank notes that intra-Afican trade is at 15 per cent (nearly double Obi’s claim), compared to Europe’s 67 per cent, Asia’s 58 per cent, North America’s 48 per cent, and Latin America’s 20 per cent. According to Brookings, in 2016, intra-African exports made up 18 per cent of total exports.

On the other hand, the contribution of oil products to Nigeria’s foreign exchange is closer to 90 per cent than 80. According to the NBS, crude oil and other petroleum products constituted up to 87.7 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings in the first quarter of 2018.

Verdict: The claims are false and understated, respectively.

Claim: I have invested aggressively in education as governor, taking my state from being 28th to number one…

“The more you invest in education, the better your economy. So we will aggressively invest in education. I have done this even as a governor of a state, where I took a state from being number 28 to number one, because we know the value of education. I was the first to equip all our schools with ICT… Go to HP, I bought the highest [number of] computer[s] ever bought by a government in Africa: 30,000. So I know the value,” he said.

Truly, Anambra State was declared first among states in Nigeria in the 2013 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) followed by Abia, Rivers and Lagos states; and the Anambra State Commissioner for Education, Uju Okeke, attributed the feat to Obi’s policies in the education sector. The same feat was achieved the following year when his tenure came to an end.

It is also true that the former governor’s acquisition of computers for secondary schools has been acknowledged. In 2014, at the 25th Annual Conference of the Nigeria Computer Society, Obi was awarded for his contributions along the line.

“On the assumption of office, the former Governor embarked on the computerization of schools and offices in Anambra State. Today, all public offices in the State have computers unlike before him, when manual typewriters were still in use,” David O. Adewunmi, the society’s president said.

“He purchased more than 30,000 desktop and laptop computers for secondary schools in the State. The last purchase was 22,500 units of laptop computers from HP at the ratio of one computer to 10 students, the largest for computer purchase for school in the entire African continent.”

It is not clear if this last claim applied generally or was restricted to sub-national governments only. Records, however, show that countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa have implemented much more ambitious educational computer projects before 2015.

The ICIR could not confirm whether Anambra State’s secondary schools were ranked 28th by WAEC before Obi’s administration.

Verdict: The claims are true, to the extent which they can be verified.

Claim: NPA has an office and guesthouse in London…

Obi said: “Nigerian Ports Authority, for years, looked at the expansion that is coming and everything and decided not to invest. Instead, we are using money wrongly. Nigerian Ports Authority is the only ports in the world that has an office, even a guesthouse, outside its country of operation. They have a guesthouse in London; and that is the problem.”

Checks on the website of the Nigerian Ports Authorities show that the agency has an “overseas liaison office” with the physical address stated as: 2nd Floor, Allenby House, 1a Temple Rd Cricklewood, London. The ICIR could however not confirm if the agency has a guesthouse in the same city, or if it is the only ports authority in the world to have an office outside national borders.

Verdict: The claim about the overseas office is true, while others could not be ascertained.

Claim: Buhari on March 26, 2015… said he should be removed if he doesn’t deliver

“We are in a situation where, four years ago, on March 26 2015, our president said to us, ‘if I fail to deliver, choose your leader.’ The question is: Have they delivered?” Obi said in his closing statement, as the audience cheered.

There is no record of Buhari delivering a reported speech on this day. What he did though was sign a second peace accord alongside then President Goodluck Jonathan, which was initiated by the National Peace Committee. Bola Tinubu delivered a speech the previous day at the 7th Annual Bola Tinubu Colloquium, and he said nothing close.

The ICIR has also studied the president’s acceptance speech of April 1, 2015, inaugural speech of May 29, 2015, independence day speech of October 1, 2015, and speech at the swearing-in of ministers on November 11, 2015, and could not find the statement credited to him by the PDP vice presidential candidate.

It should be noted also that March 26 was nearly one week before Buhari was declared president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission, which would have made the utterance of the attributed statement premature.

Verdict: The claim is false and could not be substantiated.

PETER Obi, vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP has claimed that the unemployment and underemployment rate in Nigeria rose from 24 per cent in 2015 to 40 per cent in 2018.

Obi made the claim at the just concluded vice presidential candidate debate organised by the Nigeria Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON).

His goal is to make the economic policy of Buhari look worse than bad.

“In 2015, unemployment and underemployment rate used to be 24 per cent, but now, it is about 40 per cent” Obi claimed

VERIFICATION OF CLAIM

To verify the claim, The ICIR looked through data and reports published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on unemployment and labour.

UNEMPLOYMENT/UNDEREMPLOYMENT DEFINED

The labour force population covers all persons aged 15 to 64 years who are willing and able to work
regardless of whether they have a job or not. The definition of unemployment, therefore, covers persons (aged 15–64) who during the reference period were currently available for work, actively seeking for work but were without work. Underemployment, however, occurs if one work less than full-time hours, which is 40 hours, but work at least 20 hours on average a week and /or if you work full time but are engaged in an activity that underutilizes your skills, time and educational qualifications.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT RATE FIGURES FROM 2015 TO 2017

Data obtained from a report titled “Unemployment/underemployment report Q3 2016″ from the website of the NBS shows that Nigeria’s unemployment and underemployment rate in Q1 2015 was 29.1 per cent, it increased to 35.2 per cent at the last quarter of 2016.

The latest report by the NBS shows that unemployment and underemployment rate for Q1 2017 was 37.2 per cent and rose to 40.0 per cent in Q3 2017

CONCLUSION

Obi’s claim is correct on one side and not correct on the other side. He said that “Unemployment rate used to be 24 per cent in 2015, but now, it is about 40 per cent”. Available official records support his claim for 2017 figure. However, the rate was slightly higher than he claimed it to be in 2015; the rate was 29.1 per cent. Therefore, Buhari should not be held accountable for 5.1 per cent loss of job

The unemployment and underemployment rate in Nigeria kept increasing since 2015, it has RISEN to 40 per cent as claimed by Obi.

By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

TOPE Fasua, founder and 2019 presidential candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), has reacted to a fact-check published by The ICIR, referring to it as “nasty reporting” and “nonsense”, and asking that the report be rewritten.

At the first presidential debate held on Tuesday by the Centre for Democracy and Development, with the focus centred on security, Fasua had complained that budgetary expenditures on education, health and agriculture are inadequate.

“So as we are speaking about security,” he added, “remember what is called food security. We have food poverty in Nigeria. 90 million people are food poor in this country, in a country of abundance; and that is why we came with Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party.”

In the fact-check published on Thursday, The ICIR noted that this claim is “grossly exaggerated and contradicts figures from reliable sources”. This is because, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), as of 2016, 13 million Nigerians suffered from hunger.

Likewise, the 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World prepared by the same agency of the United Nations states that the prevalence of undernourishment (the traditional FAO indicator used to monitor hunger at the global and regional level) in Nigeria is 11.5 per cent (21.5 million people) and the prevalence of severe food insecurity is 24.8 per cent (46.1 million people).

The ANRP presidential candidate, however, expressed his displeasure with the report on the centre’s Facebook page, and argued that his statistics is correct.

“What kind of nasty reporting are you guys doing at ICIR?” Fasua asked. “If you want to play James Bond, better get your fact right.”

“According to worldpoverty.io, we have 89m people EXTREMELY POOR. What is extremely poor if not food poor? Dudes, get your act right if you want to go to town rubbishing people. I will take this up with the man I met who I believes [sic.] heads ICIR. Already I want you to rewrite the nonsense written about what I said here. Thanks.”

But is food poverty equal to extreme poverty?

In backing up his claim about food poverty, the presidential hopeful, who is a graduate of Economics and the CEO of Global Analytics Consulting Ltd, presented a figure about extreme poverty and suggested it is the same as food poverty. But is there any truth to this assumption?

On one hand, the UN declaration at World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995 (p. 38) defines absolute poverty (or extreme, abject poverty) as “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services.”

Former World Bank president Robert McNamara similarly described extreme poverty as “a condition so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency.”

The World Bank Group and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) have today placed a monetary benchmark on extreme poverty, one which is said to be more suitable to third world countries. According to this definition, extremely poor persons are those who “live on less than $1.90 per day”.

On the other hand, food poverty, also called household food insecurity, according to UNICEF, “is the inability to afford, or to have access to, food to make up a healthy diet. It is about the quality of food as well as quantity.” In other words, indices on food poverty are not about income (alone) or quality of health or access to education, but access to adequate and balanced diet.

A 2017 report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), a leading independent consultancy in the United Kingdom, defines “households that have to spend more than 10% of their income on food as being in food poverty.” Buttressing the point that food poverty is not just about how many dollars is earned by a part of the population, this report also concludes that while UK households are spending more on food now compared to five years ago, they are “eating much less”.

Elizabeth Dowler, Emeritus Professor of Food and Social Policy at the University of Warwick, goes further to define food poverty as “the inability to consume an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so.”

It is thus evident that extreme poverty is not the same as food poverty, as it encompasses a wide range of factors including food insecurity and malnutrition. This is corroborated by the Manchester Poverty Action Food Poverty Report which says that food poverty “has to be seen as one aspect of general poverty levels”.

Further reinforcing the point is a 2009 study published by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, which distinguished the concept of “absolute poverty line” from “food poverty line”.

“By definition, the (absolute) poverty line is  the income needed to satisfy the minimum basic needs of food and non-food,” it states. “The  food component of the poverty line, referred to as the food poverty line (FPL), is augmented by an allowance for non-food needs to yield the (total) poverty line.”

It adds: “The FPL may be thought of as the amount needed for food to sustain normal  physical activity and good health, while the non-food component of the poverty line  consists of the cost of essential non-food requirements such as clothing, shelter,  primary schooling, basic health care, and the like.”

The connection between “hunger” and “food insecurity” is drawn by the World Hunger Education Service (WHES), which said the former is related to both food insecurity and malnutrition, adding that “the focus for global hunger is undernutrition”.

Discrepancy in figures, nonetheless

Under the assumption that Fasua implied food poverty and extreme poverty are one and the same, his figures, The ICIR observes, are still inaccurate.

While at the presidential debate he said 90 million Nigerians are “food poor”, in his later comment on the social media, he reduced this figure to 89 million. However, the figure provided by the authority cited by the presidential candidate, the World Poverty Clock, is: 88, 315,793.

In essence, there is a difference of 1.7 million Nigerians between the figure cited by Fasua and  the one cited by the authority he referenced in his Facebook post — still justifying The ICIR‘s original verdict that the statistics quoted by the ANRP flagbearer is exaggerated, and contradicts figures from reliable sources.

By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

TOP members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) met in Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, on Tuesday to each convince Nigerians their parties possessed the best ideas in bringing lasting peace to the country.

However, not all their claims and arguments, as The ICIR later discovered in a follow-up fact-check, are founded on flawless facts. All three speakers — Lanre Issa-Onilu, APC national publicity secretary, Osita Chidoka, former Aviation Minister representing the PDP, and Tope Fasua, ANRP presidential candidate — committed one factual error or the other.

The event was the first of the Nigerian Political Parties Discussion Series for parties fielding presidential candidates. In this report, The ICIR places the claims of the various parties side by side with available evidence and gives verdicts on their factuality.

APC: Neighbouring countries did not work with previous govt.

Claim: When he started off, Issa-Onilu, who represented the ruling APC, said “the issue of security is one which I always say we shouldn’t play politics with”. But it appears that is exactly what he did when he claimed that the trustworthiness of the Buhari administration, which the PDP-led government lacked, is what has won the country support from neighbouring African countries such as Niger and Cameroon.

He said: “I want to discuss the fact that this government is responsive. This government is taking far-reaching action because if the past government had looked for ways of tackling this issues in a way that will make this peace to be more durable, we will not be where we are today… But this time around, we could see that the most important thing in security is your reputation as a country and the credibility of the government in power … because we cannot tackle security alone without the other countries around you being fully involved.

“So the involvement of Chad, Niger, Cameroon and other countries that are cooperating with us has to do with the credibility of the government. The successes we have recorded are made possible because we have the credibility for suh countries to work with us. We know they didn’t work with the past government because there was no such credibility.”

Checks by The ICIR, however, revealed that it is incorrect to say neighbouring African countries did not collaborate with the previous administration to fight terrorism as there are numerous records showing otherwise.

In July 2014, following attacks outside local borders by the terrorist sect, defence ministers of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger met in Niamey and pledged to expedite the creation of a 2,800-strong regional force to tackle.

Months earlier, in March, Nigeria entered into an agreement with France, the Republic of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger “to increase the level of coordination and exchange of intelligence as well as hold regular meetings of experts with a view to containing the menace.”

And beginning in 2015, before Buhari’s inauguration, the coalition of West African troops launched an offensive against the insurgents, with soldiers from Niger and Chad crossing into Northeastern Nigeria for the operation.

Verdict: The claim is false.

The APC national publicity secretary also said, in the last three years, “there has been massive improvement in the conduct of the police, in terms of them applying the best … that you expect for this kind of environment due to the job they are doing”. The 2016 World Internal Security and Police Index, which ranked Nigeria 127th out of 127 countries, however, gives a lie to this claim.

According to the report, “Nigeria was the worst performing country on the WISPI, with a score of 0.255. Nigeria scored poorly across all four domains [i.e. capacity, process, legitimacy, outcomes], and had the worst score of any country in the Index on the process and outcomes domains. All of its domain scores were in the bottom ten countries.”

PDP: There is no centralised police force as large as Nigeria’s in the world

Claim: Speaking in support of the PDP presidential candidate’s state and community policing policy, Chidoka said Nigeria is the only country in the world that operates a police force having up to 370,000 operatives, which is controlled by only one tier of government.

He said: “Let me correct an impression. The Nigeria Police of 370,000 men is a big organisation. It is a humongous organisation. There is no police force in the world with 370,000 being controlled centrally from one location. I dare anybody to show me that police force.

“What we need to talk about here is fundamentally how do we structure the police to deliver public safety… that is why efforts are being made to ensure that we do not confuse public safety with just having a police force that is sitting in Abuja. We have to face reality, and the reality is that there is no organisation like the Nigeria Police Force anywhere in the world.”

According to the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), the Nigeria Police Force has a strength of over 350,000 men and women; and a recent statement by the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris suggests the population is within the range of 320,000.

This means the force is lesser than that of Indian force of 1.93 million, the Chinese force of over 1.6 million (based on a 2007 count), as well as those of the United States, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey and Pakistan.

According to a 2012 Police Decentralisation Index, the police systems in Russia, which has four tiers of government, operates a centralised force controlled by the top tier. Indonesia and Turkey also operate similarly centralised forces, while Mexico and Brazil have decentralised police organisations.

Verdict: The claim is false.

Chidoka, who is also a former Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), equally said during his stint at the corps, they introduced a system of capturing all drivers’ licenses and vehicle number plates in the country “so that when you stop a car on the road, you just type in the number”.

“If you go to nvis.org.ng now, you will type in the car number and you will get the details of that vehicle. The whole idea is that we will invest in technology,” he added.

The ICIR checked the agency’s Number Plate Verification portal to confirm to what extent this claim is true. It was discovered that the information available to the public, after inputing a vehicle’s registration number, is scanty. The portal only states if the number is valid and then vaguely adds the type of car it was assigned to; for instance: “Number Plate is valid and assigned to CAMRY.”

In contradistinction, however, the Lagos State Vehicle Number Plate Verification Portal, launched in 2017, not only displays the model of the vehicle if the number provided is valid, it also states the colour of the car, the chassis number, the vehicle status (whether duly registered by the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency), the issue date, as well as the expiry date.

ANRP: 90 million Nigerians are food poor etc.

Claim: In advancing his candidacy, Fasua, ANRP founder and presidential candidate, said 90 million Nigerians are “food poor”.

According to him: “It is not only the budget for security that is low. The budget for even food, for agriculture, for education, for health in Nigeria is low. So as we are speaking about security, remember what is called food security. We have food poverty in Nigeria. 90 million people are food poor in this country, in a country of abundance; and that is why we came with Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party.”

The ICIR has, however, not been able to find corroborating evidence for this figure. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), as of 2016, 13 million Nigerians suffered from hunger.

Also, according to the 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World prepared by FAO, as at 2017, the prevalence of undernourishment (the traditional FAO indicator used to monitor hunger at the global and regional level) in the total population is 11.5 per cent (21.5 million people) and the prevalence of severe food insecurity is 24.8 per cent (46.1 million people) — none as high as the figure cited by the ANRP candidate.

On the high side is a figure given in 2015 by Idiat Amusu, head of department, Food/Agriculture Technology at the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. According to her estimates, “about 60 million Nigerians go to bed hungry”.

Verdict: The claim is grossly exaggerated and contradicts figures from reliable sources.

Also, speaking within the context of jobs and youth employment, Fasua seemed to suggest that over 80 per cent of young Nigerians are without jobs.

“A lot of internal security has to do with youth unemployment and youth poverty,” he said. “When young people under 18 years old are not under any kind of direction and no one cares for them. More than 80 per cent of them in this country are kind of ruderless. So, what happens is that if the country does not put jobs in the hands of our youth, the devil is going to put jobs in their hands.”

Again, if rightly construed, this figure also contradicts available data from the National Bureau of Statistics. According to the Bureau’s Labour Force Statistics’ Unemployment and Underemployment Report of 2017 (first to third quarter), “combined unemployment and underemployment rate for the entire youth labour force (15-35 years) was 52.65% or 22.64 million (10.96 million unemployed and another 11.68 million underemployed), compared to 45.65% in Q3 2016, 47.41% in Q4 2016 and 49.70% in Q3 2017.”

Verdict: The claim is vague and misleading, but also exaggerated if it was intended to refer to youth unemployment rates in the country.

By Damilola OJETUNDE.

LAURETTA Onochie, a media aide to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has claimed that PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, distributed cash and food at his Sokoto rally held on Monday, December 3.

Also, one Facebook user, named Zara Gift Onyinye who described herself as former Manager at On Time Groundlink Limited, a subsidiary of Exotic Car Hire & Tourism posted the same picture and tagged it “This is how it happened in Sokoto today…Shameless to say the least”. The post has since garnered over 2,000 shares at the time of this report. Onochie and Onyinye are active on social media and known for spreading misinformation, The ICIR check has revealed.

Using Google Reversed Image Search, we found that the photograph circulated by Ms. Onochie first appeared online in February 2017 when a Lagos-based Charity foundation, released photos from an outreach.

The same image was re-used to publicise Ruth Eze, a Nollywood actor’s orphanage visit, two days later in February 2017.

We, therefore, submit that the image does not support the claim that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, induced voters with cash or gift at the kick-off of his presidential campaign in Sokoto.

President Muhammadu Buhari has again listed as one of his achievements the N2.5 billion Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply project in Edo State, a project that is yet to be completed.

The project was  No.3 on the list of eight projects captured in the Next Level Campaign Manual of the president for the 2019 election.

Earlier, while marking his third anniversary in office on May 29, the president also list the uncompleted water project as his achievement in office.

The ICIR reported in July 2018 that the project was not completed despite the claim by the Presidency in the Fact Sheet published two months before the ICIR report.

It’s not only the current administration that has claimed credit for this uncompleted project. President Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan’s administration also listed the project as completed.

In reality, however, Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply project remains uncompleted till date.

The project is still hampered by issues of reticulation, delayed construction of road to the river and compensation to land owners.

Genesis of Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply

Northern Ishan Water Supply Project was awarded in 2005 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to provide water to Ugboha, Uromi and environs.  It was awarded to Chinese construction company, CGC, at the sum of N2.2billion, but the figure was jerked up to N2.4billion in 2009.

Work stopped at the site, four years after work commenced on the project.

In 2014, Friday Itulah, a member of House of Representatives representing Esan South-East/Esan North-East Federal Constituency moved a motion for the completion of the project.

Itulah, also a former Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly said insufficient water reticulation in the community hosting the water in-take plant led the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to appropriate in 2012 the sum of NI70 million which he said was not released for the project.

The sum, Itulah told the House then was to be released through Owena River Basin Development Authority to DADIM Integrated Concepts Limited for the reticulation.

According to him, another N130 million was to be released for outstanding payment, compensation and revitalisation of equipment by the Ministry to the main contractor- CGC, which he said was also not released.

In all, a total of N300 million delayed the completion of the project in 2014 and Itulah suggested for its inclusion in the 2015 fiscal year Appropriation Act.

In essence, what delayed the completion and commissioning of the project were outstanding payment, compensation and revatilisation of equipment by the Ministry to the main contractor- CGC.

But in 2018, four years after he moved the motion for the completion of the project, it has remained uncompleted −the water reticulation is still not done.

Essentially, reticulation of water at the host community of the project—Ugboha was a major bone of contention. Out of the 70 tap heads contained in the bill of quantity for the community, only half of it was provided. The six tap heads that are the closest to the dam at Egwuare Ugboha are not even working.

The Ugboha Progress Union (UPU), an interest group that was fronting for the payment of compensation to owners of land taken over by the government for the construction of water supply project and water reticulation said the government failed to pay the sum of N3,808 million calculated as compensation.

Twice listed for commissioning but not completed

In 2011 and 2012 under former President Goodluck Jonathan, the Northern Ishan Water Supply Project  was listed  as completed and ready for commissioning − but attempts by that administration  to commission it was rebuffed by the people of the community on the issue of water reticulation and compensation for damaged farm and properties.

Former Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Ochepke, under Jonathan in her mid -term report (2011-2013) listed the water supply project among others as completed and ready for completion.

In the report, Ochekpe said the water project gulped N2.497 billion had created 120 jobs and would serve 150,000 people.

Also, Obadiah Ando, her predecessor, in his Roadmap for Water Sector, 2011 listed the project as completed and ready for commissioning.

Former Vice President Namadi Sambo in 2012 was expected to commission the project, but a protest by the host community over the insufficient water reticulation and compensation to landowners and farmers, whose properties and economic trees were affected, led to the postponement of commissioning.

An uncompleted project, yet commissioned

To take credit for the work not done, the water project was commissioned despite protest by the host community that it was not completed, the residents said.

In November 2017, Suleiman Adamu, Minister of Water Resources listed Northern Ishan Water Supply project among eight projects to be commissioned in early 2018.

The project, he said, was one of the 116 abandoned or uncompleted projects the Buhari administration inherited.

He said his Ministry conducted a technical audit and prioritized the hitherto uncompleted or abandoned 116 major projects inherited.

And despite unresolved issues on water reticulation, bad road to the dam, unpaid compensation, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on May 23, 2018 in the company of Minister of Water Resources, Adamu, and other officials of Federal Ministry of Water Resources and those from Edo State Government headed for Ugboha to commission the project −but it was a mission impossible − they were  chased away by angry mob at the community who set up fire and barricaded Ugboha main junction in protest against the shoddy job done.

The angry mob, majorly youths from Ugboha made the commissioning impossible even with the presence of heavily armed security operatives that accompanied the Ministers and their entourage.

But the commissioning was done at the Edo State Government House, Benin City on the same day.  At the Government House, the Minister handed over the documents of the project to Governor of Edo State Godwin Obaseki, as a completed and commissioned project.

Adamu was quoted as saying that the government was satisfied with the quality of the job done.

“We have finished our intervention programme and we are here today to hand over the project to the Edo State Government led by Governor Godwin Obaseki,”Adamu said while handing over the project documents to the Governor.

The Commissioner for Energy and Water Resources, Yekini Idiaye, confirmed to The ICIR that the project was not completed.

Also during a meeting in June, a month after the ‘symbolic commissioning’ of the project in Benin City, during a meeting between the state government and leaders of Ugboha community, the Commissioner said steps were being taken to address the grievance of the people of Ugboha with regard to the reticulation of the water project in Ugboha, as deadline for completion has been set for December 2018.

By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

IN an attempt to draw attention to the achievements of the federal government in diversifying the nation’s economy, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has reeled out figures about the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) which conflict with all other available sources, The ICIR discovers.

One of the most celebrated achievements of the federal government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari are those related to agriculture. The president made sure to emphasise them during his meeting, in April, with British Prime Minister Theresa May. He said it during his Democracy Day speech in May, and has mentioned it on several other occasions.

He has, in fact, accused Nigerian news organisations of under-reporting these achievements, especially as they relate to the local production of rice and the significant drop in imports.

Occupying the centre stage in this narrative is the Anchor Borrowers Programme, to which the bulk of the successes recorded has been attributed. However, as with a number of other top projects executed by the federal government, the ABP has been soiled by secrecy and a lack of transparency — especially in the population and identities of beneficiaries.

Speaking at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit on October 22, Osinbajo appeared to have exaggerated statistics concerning the ABP, which is coordinated by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Development Finance Department (DFD).

“Through the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme,” he said, “credit is given directly to smallholder farmers, and the Anchor Borrowers programme is our agricultural programme for financing smallholder farms.

“And the CBN and 13 participating banks have so far had given credit totalling to N120.6 billion, and this has been given to 720,000 smallholder farmers, who [are] cultivating 12 commodities so far including; Rice, wheat, cotton, Soya beans, Cassava, poultry and groundnut across the 36 States and FCT.”

The Vice President’s figures, however, cannot be traced to any other source, even as they conflict with those which have been provided by the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) and corroborated in the administration’s scorecard.

According to the BMO, self-described as “a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to amplify the good work … of the Pres. Buhari administration”, the Anchor Borrowers Programme has made available “N82 billion in funding to 350,000 farmers of rice, wheat, maize, cotton, cassava, poultry, soy beans and groundnut; who have cultivated about 400,000 hectares of land”.

The same figures are contained and elaborated in the recently unveiled scorecard and manifesto of President Buhari tagged ‘The Next Level’. About 80 per cent of the N82 billion funding has gone into rice production, the document states, “further driving the nation’s target of attaining self-sufficiency in rice production”.

Lauretta Onochie, Buhari’s social media aide made a similar claim in October when she highlighted sixty-four (64) achievements of the federal government, in reaction to allegations of non-performance.

Likewise, Anne Ihugba, the Head of Corporate Communications at the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) has said, through the agency which supervises mapping of farmers and disbursement, the ABP is creating over 250,000 direct jobs for farmers and up to 1.25m indirect jobs.

According to reports, NIRSAL’s entire database of farmers nationwide, from where beneficiaries of the borrowers’ program are drawn, has captured details of only over 400,000. This, as well, is a far cry from Osinbajo’s claim that 720,000 smallholder farmers have benefited from the programme.

Blemished by secrecy, shortcomings

The Anchor Borrowers Programme was established by the CBN in fulfilment of its developmental functions. President Buhari launched it in November 2015, with the objective of creating “economic linkage between smallholder farmers and reputable large-scale processors with a view to increasing agricultural output and significantly improving capacity utilization of processors.”

Funding for the project is sourced mainly from the N220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) of the CBN, which was launched earlier in 2013.

Despite various calls, details of the claimed beneficiaries of the programme have not been made available by the CBN for independent verification, thus raising doubts about the fund’s credibility.

Investigations have revealed that various other shortcomings are hampering the project’s implementation such as the distribution of expired seedlings, late distribution of fertilisers, delay in fund disbursement, non-compliance from financial institutions, diversion of money into private and unqualified hands, as well as grossly inadequate coverage in various states.

Meanwhile, NIRSAL confirmed in a phone conversation with The ICIR that it is the only body in charge of disbursing funds to farmers under the scheme. An e-mail further sent, upon request, to the Head of Corporate Communications requesting for the latest figure of how many farmers have benefitted so far under the social welfare credit programme, has however not been attended to following an acknowledgement on October 25.

A call placed to CBN’s helpline for the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme for the purpose of seeking similar clarifications was however not answered.