EconomyFact Check

‘Akwa Ibom Kingdom’ is not the fifth largest natural oil reserve in Africa

A user on an online community claims that Akwa Abasi Ibom kingdom is listed on Wikipedia as the fifth “highest” producer of oil and gas in Africa.

FALSE. Akwa Abasi Ibom kingdom does not exist.

FULL TEXT

On a discussion thread on Nairaland, a user by name Iluamoh claims that Akwa Abasi Ibom Kingdom lists on Wikipedia as the fifth “highest” producer of oil and gas in Africa after Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, and Libya. Nairaland is an online community and discussion forum for Nigerians.

The user also claims that Akwa Ibom State has the third-largest GDP in Nigeria. 

The post appeared on Nairaland at 10.08 p.m. on August 19. 

This nairalander, as members of the community are fondly called, suggests that with this ranking “Akwa Abasi Ibom Kingdom and Lagos will arguably be among the top ten biggest/richest countries in Africa, if they were to be independent countries of [it] own…” 

This post garnered 688 views on Nairaland, a community of about 2,544,892 members.

VERIFICATION: 

Dubawa started verification with a google search engine quest which revealed that Akwa Abasi Kingdom does not exist. 

Further, a review of crude oil production data by Trade Economics for August 2020 lists Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Egypt and Republic of the Congo as the top five Crude oil producers in Africa.

There is evidence of contradiction as the Wikipedia link attached as proof does not support this claim. It only lists oil producing countries in the world in 2019 with no reference to an Akwa Abasi Ibom Kingdom.

Akwa Ibom State does exist, and it was created from Cross River State on 23, September 1987. It holds a population estimated at 5,451,277 in 2016 with a 3.5% growth projection. 

Located in the South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria, Akwa Ibom State is the largest natural oil and gas reserve in the country with 31.4% at 504,000 BPD above Rivers State at 21.56%(346,000) and Delta State at 21.43%(344,000). 

Nonetheless, it is not the state with the third-highest GDP as there is no such database on record. A further probe by Dubawa on the database of Nigeria’s apex statistical body, the National Bureau of Statistics, showed that Nigeria does not have GDP data for states and geo-politcal zones. 

GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product which is defined by the International Monetary Fund(IMF) as the measure of monetary value of final goods and services—that is, those that are bought by the end user—produced in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year). It also includes some nonmarket production, such as defense or education services provided by the government.

The absence of a comparative data of state’s GDP in Nigeria makes the ranking of any state by GDP as assumed by this nairalander statistically invalid.

CONCLUSION:

Akwa Abasi Ibom Kingdom does not exist and does not feature on the ranking of countries or territories producing oil and gas in Africa. Although Akwa Ibom State is the largest oil producer in the country, it does not have the third-highest GDP in Nigeria. There is no way to ascertain this as there is national data on GDP of states in Nigeria. 

The researcher produced this fact-check per the Dubawa 2020 Fellowship partnership with NewsWireNGR to facilitate the ethos of “truth” in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country.

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