Nigeria\u2019s Independence Day has for the past 57 years served as a platform for governments to preach unity, highlight their achievements and announce plans for the future.<\/p>\n
By Samuel Ogundipe.<\/p>\n
Yet, most of those speeches are often laced with falsehoods or half-truths. President Olusegun Obasanjo\u2019s\u00a02005 Independence Day speech<\/a>\u00a0was criticised for its inconsistencies, and President Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s 54th Independence Day address in 2012 was\u00a0ridiculed for its devious attempt<\/a>\u00a0to amass strong anti-corruption credentials on the coattails of Transparency International.<\/p>\n While President Muhammadu Buhari promised a break from all ills of the past, he has been caught with unsubstantiated claims since assuming office in 2015.<\/p>\n In his October 1, 2017 address, the\u00a0president falsely claimed<\/a>\u00a0that opposition parties did not start winning elections at local, state and federal levels until he became president. He also incorrectly stated that power generation reached an all-time high last month.<\/p>\n Not all of the president\u2019s claims in the speech, his third Independence Day address, were deceptive, however. To separate fact from fiction, PREMIUM TIMES is examining top 10 claims made by the president a week ago.<\/p>\n Claim One<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe should remind ourselves of the recent journey from 1999-2015 when our country happily returned to democratic rule.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, in spite of oil prices being an average of $100 per barrel and about 2.1 million barrels a day, that great piece of luck was squandered and the country\u2019s social and physical infrastructure neglected.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were left with no savings and huge infrastructure deficit,\u201d\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari said.<\/p>\n First, the part about depleted coffers and a dearth of infrastructure is a matter of both fact and personal opinion. Nigeria, as a developing country, is still far behind in infrastructure. That\u2019s a statement of fact.<\/p>\n But what counts as \u201cno savings\u201d remains vague. The National Sovereign Investment Authority, established in 2011, had more than N200 billion in savings when Mr. Buhari assumed office in 2015.<\/p>\n The government also met\u00a0a dividend of $2.1 billion<\/a>\u00a0on its equity in the state-owned Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited.<\/p>\n Also, the excess crude account\u00a0had a balance of $2.07 billion<\/a>\u00a0as at May 2015 when Mr. Buhari gained power.<\/p>\n While these funds cannot be described as significant for a country of estimated 180 million people, it would be inaccurate to claim that \u2018no savings\u2019 were met.<\/p>\n This point is also worth emphasising because Mr. Buhari had once stated that he met a \u201cvirtually empty treasury<\/a>\u201d with humongous debt.<\/p>\n Now, is it true that Nigeria recorded \u201can average of $100 per barrel and about 2.1 million barrels a day\u201d between 1999 and 2015?<\/p>\n Not according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. The cartel has data on crude sales since 1960.<\/p>\n Statista, a data collation platform, published the average annual crude price recorded by OPEC since 1960\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Based on the OPEC data, the average price of crude oil between 1999 and 2015 was $61.07 per barrel, which is clearly a far cry from the president\u2019s figure.<\/p>\n For the production output, PREMIUM TIMES obtained data from the National Bureau of Statistics and Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.<\/p>\n Data from the NBS, which was sent to this newspaper by its Director-General Yemi Kale, showed that Nigeria had a daily average of 2.3 million barrels per day between 1999 and 2015.<\/p>\n Waziri Adio, NEITI\u2019s executive secretary, also made production data available for his agency, from 1999 to 2014.<\/p>\n The NEITI data placed Nigeria\u2019s daily production output at\u00a02.3 million barrels between 1999 and 2014. Both figures are more than what the president claimed, strengthening his case there.<\/p>\n But back to the average price, even Mr. Buhari has not been consistent with the timeline of his claim.<\/p>\n Since 2016, the president had attached at least three different timelines to his $100-a-barrel claim.<\/p>\n In his 2016 May 29 Democracy Day speech, he said: \u201cFrom 2010<\/a>, average oil prices were $100 per barrel.\u201d<\/p>\n By October 1, when he addressed the country at Independence, Mr. Buhari had modified his statement to oil prices being \u201can average of hundred USD per barrel\u00a0over the last decade<\/a>,\u201d<\/p>\n By this year\u2019s Independence Day, the timeline had widened to \u201c1999-2015<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n If anything, these inconsistencies speak to the unreliability of the president\u2019s own source.<\/p>\n Since the president got one of two assertions right, PREMIUM TIMES rates this claim as\u00a0half true<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Claim Two<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIn the past two years, Nigeria has recorded appreciable gains in political freedom.<\/p>\n \u201cA political party at the centre losing elections of\u00a0state\u00a0governor, National Assembly seat and even State Assemblies to the opposition parties is new to Nigeria,\u201d\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari.<\/p>\n This claim has no bearing with what Nigeria\u2019s democratic experience has been for nearly two decades of\u00a0uninterrupted\u00a0constitutional republic.<\/p>\n In 2003, the Peoples Democratic Party was in control of the federal government and most states following its victory in 1999.<\/p>\n Although the general elections of April 2003 saw the party maintain its grip on the centre \u2014 as well as a majority of states\u2014 nine states\u00a0went to the opposition parties<\/a>\u00a0across the country.<\/p>\n The opposition parties included\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari\u2019s own All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, under which he ran for president in the 2003\u00a0election, losing to\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Obasanjo.<\/p>\n At the 2007 elections, with\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Obasanjo still president,\u00a012 states went to opposition<\/a>\u00a0parties.<\/p>\n The 2011 polls saw the number of\u00a0opposition state governors increase to 13<\/a>, out of the 36 states.<\/p>\n A day after his\u00a0re-election<\/a>\u00a0on July 14, 2012, former Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole,\u00a0appreciated\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Jonathan<\/a>\u00a0for his hands-off approach during the exercise.<\/p>\n \u201cI am impressed because the army actually played a neutral role in the election,\u2019\u2019\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Oshiomhole said, describing\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Jonathan as \u201ca statesman\u201d and \u201ca man of honour.\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly,\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari was not telling the truth when he claimed opposition only started flourishing under his government.<\/p>\n Interestingly, only one governorship candidate running on opposition platform clinched victory under\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari. Two of the three gubernatorial elections held since 2015 went to the ruling All Progressives Congress. Governor Seriake Dickson won re-election in Bayelsa on the platform of PDP while\u00a0Edo State<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ondo State<\/a>\u00a0went to the APC.<\/p>\n This claim is therefore rated\u00a0false<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Claim Three<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cOn security, Nigerians must be grateful to our gallant Armed Forces for rolling back the frontiers of Boko Haram\u2019s terrorism, defeating them and reducing them to cowardly attacks on soft and vulnerable targets,\u201d\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari said.<\/p>\n We\u00a0looked at this claim<\/a>\u00a0when the president made it during his 2016 Independence Day speech and found it to be mostly false.<\/p>\n Very little has changed since then. While Boko Haram has not carried out attacks as vigorous as it used to in recent months, it cannot be said to have been defeated.<\/p>\n As recently as July, the sect still carried out\u00a0a major assault on soldiers and oil prospectors<\/a>\u00a0in Borno State, where it has run riot since 2009, leaving dozens dead.<\/p>\n Similarly, an estimated\u00a0223 people were killed by terrorists\u00a0<\/a>between April and September this year, according to Amnesty International.<\/p>\n Regular attacks are still being reported, with the\u00a0Army admitting an assault on soldiers<\/a>\u00a0as recently as last week.<\/p>\n Due to the gallantry of our troops and the\u00a0significant improvement in the Chibok girls debacle<\/a>, we upgrade this claim from being incorrect last year to\u00a0barely true\u00a0<\/strong>now.<\/p>\n Claim Four<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPower remains a huge problem. As of September 12th, production of power reached an all-time high of 7,001 Megawatts,\u201d\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari said.<\/p>\n This claim is rated\u00a0false<\/strong>\u00a0because Nigeria already attained\u00a0an average available capacity of 7,141<\/a>\u00a0between January and August 2015, according to Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry.<\/p>\n Claim Five<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI am glad to say that after many years of limbo, Mambilla Power Project has taken off,\u201d\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Buhari said.<\/p>\n This statement needs better context for a concise conclusion.<\/p>\n Located in Taraba State, north-eastern Nigeria, the Mambila Power Station has been described as one of the largest in Africa. It was proposed in 1982 to generate up to 3,000 megawatts in hydroelectricity.<\/p>\n The site of the power plant, inside the picturesque Mambila Plateau, had been cleared for several decades, with the hope that its completion would significantly improve Nigeria\u2019s pathetic power generation.<\/p>\n As Mr. Buhari stated, little progress had been made in the construction since 1982. Because of the complex nature of the project, from economic to environmental landmines, past efforts could not yield anything tangible.<\/p>\n In 2012, former President Jonathan signed a memorandum with a Chinese firm, Sinohydro, for the construction of the project.<\/p>\n The agreement later fell apart a year later because the Ministry of Power was \u201cworking on firming the project cost,\u201d\u00a0Daily Trust\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since assuming office, there\u2019s little evidence to show that President Buhari had approved any contract for the construction or mobilised contractors to the site.<\/p>\n It was barely a month ago that\u00a0the administration announced a memorandum<\/a>\u00a0that is almost similar to the one that collapsed under\u00a0Mr. Jonathan.<\/p>\n \u201cThe memorandum from the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing was to the award of the Mambilla Hydro-Power plant,\u201d Minister Babatunde Fashola said.<\/p>\n Mr. Fashola said the project, put at $5.7 billion, would be jointly financed by the federal government and the China Export-Import, EXIM, Bank.<\/p>\n EXIM bank would provide 85 percent of the cost while the federal government would provide 15 percent.<\/p>\n As noted earlier, this announcement is not a sufficient basis for declaring that the project has \u201ctaken off.\u201d While the memorandum has been signed, there\u2019s no evidence that it will lead to final contract agreement.<\/p>\n Even if it results in substantive contract award, it is not clear when funding would be made available, considering the fact that a lot of preliminary work still needs to be done and the administration has less than two years left.<\/p>\n This claim is, therefore, rated\u00a0mostly false<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Claim Six<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSince December last year, this administration has produced over seven million 50Kg bags of fertiliser. Eleven blending plants with a capacity of 2.1 million metric tons have been reactivated. We have saved $150 million in foreign exchange and N60 billion in subsidy. Fertiliser prices have dropped from N13,000 per 50Kg bag to N5,500,\u201d Mr. Buhari said.<\/p>\n While it is true that the government revived some moribund plants and ramped up production of fertiliser in recent months,<\/strong>\u00a0the pricing aspect must be contextualised.<\/p>\n Undoubtedly, fertiliser production has increased since December 2016 as the president stated.<\/p>\n This is due to a deal which the Buhari administration signed with the Moroccan government on production and supply of phosphate, a major ingredient in the production of fertiliser.<\/p>\n The pact,\u00a0announced on December 3, 2016<\/a>, when the King of Morocco visited Mr. Buhari at the State House,\u00a0started yielding results barely a few weeks after it was signed.<\/p>\n With regular and fair quantity phosphate supply from Morocco, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority\u00a0was able to revive 12 fertiliser blending factories<\/a>\u00a0across the country as at July 2017, according to its managing director, Uche Orji.<\/p>\n The revived 12 were amongst the 28 moribund fertiliser plants which the NSIA identified. The progress resulted in fertiliser prices dropping from N14,000 to N5, 500, Mr. Orji told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview on July 3.<\/p>\n Also in July, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, then in his capacity as acting-president,\u00a0commissioned an Indorama fertiliser plant<\/a>\u00a0near Port Harcourt.<\/p>\n The Chinese-owned factory had the capacity to produce up to 4,000 metric tons per day, according to a statement from Mr. Osinbajo\u2019s office.<\/p>\n These moves have helped stabilise fertiliser supply and pricing, according to farmers interviewed by PREMIUM TIMES.<\/p>\n But the farmers were unable to corroborate Mr. Buhari\u2019s claim that his government drove down the price from N13,000 to N5,500.<\/p>\n In fairness, the president did not give a timeline about high and low figures he gave. (Like other parts of this fact check, his spokespersons did not respond to request for clarification on this aspect of the president\u2019s speech.)<\/p>\n Yet it is also fair to say that the president was likely referring the cost of fertiliser under his own government in 2016, when prices went through the roof.<\/p>\n Under the last administration (2010-2015),\u00a0fertiliser sold at a maximum N6,000<\/a>, an agricultural economist at the University of Ibadan found.<\/p>\n The administration was also widely praised for its Growth Enhancement Support scheme, which eliminated the menace of middlemen and drove prices of inorganic fertiliser, which contains nitrate, phosphate and potash, to as low as\u00a0N2,500<\/a>\u00a0for those purchasing directly from the government.<\/p>\n The policy was driven by Akinwunmi Adesina, the President of African Development Bank who was the Minister of Agriculture at the time.<\/p>\n Mr. Buhari suspended the policy shortly after he assumed office, citing alleged irregularities and sharp practices that characterised the scheme. The Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, also said the GES had piled up billions of naira in subsidy debt.<\/p>\n The administration\u00a0later revived the policy in September 2016<\/a>, after\u00a0farmers had been left stranded<\/a>due to the scarcity caused by the suspension of GES and fertiliser subsidy.<\/p>\n Therefore, while it is true that some of Mr. Buhari\u2019s recent policies have contributed to driving the prices of fertilisers down, it was his actions that caused the scarcity and attendant increases in the first place.<\/p>\n The claim can, therefore, is rated as\u00a0mostly true<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Claim Seven<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe country has recorded seven consecutive months of lower inflation, Naira rate is beginning to stabilise, appreciating from N525 per $1 in February this year to N360 today,\u201d Mr. Buhari said.<\/p>\n These claims are true, but they are not entirely an achievement as the president apparently suggested.<\/p>\n When Mr. Buhari assumed office in May 2015, inflation rate stood at nine percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n It started rising from June, reaching 9.55 percent at the end of 2015.<\/p>\n At the end of 2016, the rate was 18.55. It peaked in February 2017 at 18.78 percent.<\/p>\n It was not until March 2017 that the rate started easing, a progress that had been steady since then.<\/p>\n As for the dollar, Mr. Buhari cited parallel rate rather than the official rate. This is rich coming from the same president that\u00a0vowed never to murder the naira<\/a>\u00a0amidst pressure for a devaluation when the national currency was in a freefall against the dollar.<\/p>\n The\u00a0dollar surpassed the N500 mark<\/a>\u00a0at the black market in February, a situation the government frowned at and blamed on speculators.<\/p>\n But when Mr. Buhari assumed office in May 2015, the parallel rate was N220 per dollar, according to\u00a0a 2015 chart by The Cable<\/a>. It started falling considerably in July at N230 a dollar, reaching N240 a dollar by November as the administration\u2019s statements and actions started having impact on the economy.<\/p>\n Officially, the naira exchanged for N199.05 on the day Mr. Buhari was sworn in, according to data obtained from\u00a0investing.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n By August 9, 2016, it was exchanged at N322.250 against the dollar.<\/p>\n On August 3, 2017, it sold for N365.550 per dollar.\u00a0And it is currently N305 per dollar at the official rate.<\/p>\n Therefore, the current parallel rate of N360 against the naira, though true, cannot be described as an achievement since it was Mr. Buhari\u2019s government who was responsible for the crisis.<\/p>\n This claim is\u00a0true\u00a0<\/strong>but citizens are advised to be wary of the context.<\/p>\n Claim Eight<\/strong><\/p>\n Altogether totalling N1.642 trillion.<\/p>\n This was done to enable states to pay outstanding salaries, pensions and small business suppliers who had been all but crippled over the years.<\/p>\n This claim is\u00a0true<\/strong>. The administration has advanced a series of slush payments to the states within the last two years for reasons the president cited.<\/p>\n Although he did not specify, it is safe to assume the Paris Club refund constitutes a major bulk of the N1 trillion so far released this year, using the 2017 budget performance document from the Budget Office.<\/p>\n Claim Nine<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIn addition, the Government\u2019s current N500 billion Special Intervention Programme is targeting groups through;<\/p>\n This claim is\u00a0true<\/strong>. The\u00a0Buhari administration started the home-grown school feeding programme<\/a>amongst\u00a0other aforementioned policies<\/a>\u00a0which were part of his campaign promises.<\/p>\n Claim Ten<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe are determined to eradicate corruption from our body politic.<\/p>\n The Administration\u2019s new institutional reforms include:<\/p>\n This claim is rated\u00a0mostly false<\/strong>. Even though\u00a0the president has been enforcing the TSA, it was the\u00a0brainchild of the Jonathan administration<\/a>, and cannot be categorised as a \u201cnew institutional reform\u201d.<\/p>\n As at January 2015, the policy, first tested in 2012, had been implemented by over 500 agencies,\u00a0the Vanguard reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n In May, the\u00a0administration\u00a0acknowledged that the TSA kicked off in 2012<\/a>\u00a0in it compiled its achievement for the first two years in office.<\/p>\n Similarly, the IPPIS, a department of the Office of Accountant General of the Federation responsible for paying over 300,000 federal workers across 459 agencies, had been active since 2007, according to\u00a0its Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
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