President Bola Tinubu and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Photo Source: X.
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Claim: An X user claims that while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is “worth $700 billion,” Nigeria is “$500 billion in debt,” despite discovering oil two years earlier.
Verdict: Mostly false! While Nigeria discovered commercial oil before the UAE, the claim that Nigeria has a $500 billion debt is false. Likewise, the UAE’s net wealth is $3.12 trillion, not $700 billion as claimed.
Full Text
On June 25, 2026, an X user, @felixherbt, shared a post comparing Nigeria’s debt with the UAE’s “worth.”
The post (archived here) reads, “Nigeria discovered oil in 1956. The UAE discovered it in 1958. Today, the UAE is worth $700 billion. Nigeria is $500 billion in debt. Same resources, same decade, opposite results.”
As of July 2, 2026, the post had attracted over 370,000 views, 23,000 likes, and more than 7,000 reposts.
The claim generated mixed reactions, with many users blaming Nigeria’s economic challenges on poor leadership.
One X user, @chopsdaddi, wrote, “The UAE has only oil and tourism. They don’t even tax their citizens. Nigeria has oil, agriculture, tax revenue, mineral deposits, and a large workforce. But a bunch of fools at the top who do not know how to harness potential.”
Another user, @NigVoteWatchers, commented, “The difference is leadership! UAE is blessed, while Nigeria is cursed with leadership.”
The claim has also been shared by several users on Facebook here, here and here.
DUBAWA verified the claim given its wide circulation.
Verification
DUBAWA broke the claim into three parts to investigate the different issues raised.
Did Nigeria discover oil before the UAE?
According to the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources in Nigeria, Shell-BP made Nigeria’s first commercial oil discovery at Oloibiri, in present-day Bayelsa State, in 1956.
Records from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) also show that Abu Dhabi’s first commercial oil discovery came in 1958 at the Murban Bab oil field. That was two years after Nigeria discovered its oil. So the claim on the time of oil discovery for both countries is true.
Does Nigeria have a $500 debt?
Nigeria’s total public debt covers the domestic and external debts of the Federal Government, 36 states, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This data is managed by the Debt Management Office (DMO).
According to DMO data (archived here) published on April 13, 2026, Nigeria’s total public debt as of December 31, 2025, stood at $110.97 billion (N159.28 trillion).
The claim inflated Nigeria’s public debt by more than three times the official figure.
Is the UAE worth $700 billion?
The claimant said that the UAE’s economy is worth $700 billion. To verify the claim, DUBAWA searched for the most recent data on the UAE’s net wealth.
In December 2025, Gulf News, a UAE newspaper, reported that the UAE’s total net wealth had reached $3.12 trillion. This is broken into $1.15 trillion in financial assets and $2.18 trillion in real assets, according to data from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Further searches suggested that the claimant may have obtained his $700 billion quote from the 2026 BCG Global Wealth Report (archived here).
However, the loophole is that the 2026 data referred to two separate sub-metrics: the combined private wealth of UAE residents and the assets under management at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). These metrics do not fully reflect the UAE’s net worth.
Is the comparison itself valid?
Apart from the inaccurate figures, the post compares two different economic measures: Nigeria’s public debt against the UAE’s net wealth.
DUBAWA spoke to Paul Alaje, a Chief Economist at SPM Professionals, who said the comparison does not present an accurate picture of either country’s economy because it compares different economic indicators.
Paul said isolating Nigeria’s debt for comparison without considering debt servicing, government revenue, and foreign reserves is economically misleading.
He said that the United States and China carry far higher debt than Nigeria yet maintain significantly better quality of life, showing that debt stock alone does not tell the full story of an economy.
He also highlighted a key structural difference between the two countries.
“While they are investing in capital, Nigeria sometimes invests in consumption,” he said.
He noted that the UAE borrows to fund “measurable infrastructure and development while Nigeria has borrowed to pay salaries.”
DUBAWA also spoke to the former Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Muda Yusuf, who said the economic outcomes of Nigeria and the UAE cannot be explained by the timing of their oil discoveries alone.
According to him, differences in governance, investment climate, policy consistency, and oil-sector management largely explain why the two countries have experienced different economic outcomes.
“That is where we missed it when we compare Nigeria with the UAE,” he said.
Conclusion
While the dates of discovery of commercial oil in Nigeria and the UAE are correct, the figures for both countries’ net worth and debt profiles are misleading.
This report was produced under the 2026 Kwame Karikari Fact-checking and OSINT Fellowship, co-hosted by DUBAWA and the Digital Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Disorder Analysis Centre (DAIDAC), with support from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).
