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‘Reimagining Nigeria’: fact-checking president’s adviser Tope Fasua’s bold economic claims


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‘Reimagining Nigeria’: fact-checking president’s adviser Tope Fasua’s bold economic claims

Africa Check

15th August 2025

By: Africa Check

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In a July 2025 discussion on Arise News TV, Tope Fasua, economic adviser to Nigeria’s president, called for a bigger national budget to tackle persistent poverty and invest in infrastructure, urging the country to “reimagine” itself.

To make his case, Fasua pointed to shifts in Nigeria’s vital oil trade, changes in the economic structure and a recent rebasing of the gross domestic product (GDP). 

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We examined public data to see how some of the headline economic claims he made on air stack up.

Claim: The country “saved $15-billion from import of petroleum products, which reduced to $10-billion in 2024”.

Verdict: Incorrect

Fasua said that Nigeria was heading towards zero crude oil exports and fewer refined product imports, claiming petroleum imports fell to “$10-billion” in 2024, saving “$15-billion”. While he didn’t specify the currency in the interview, he has been reported elsewhere making a similar claim in US dollars.

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But Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data tells a different story. Its 2024 annual balance of payments report showed petroleum imports fell from US$18.3-billion in 2023 to $14.1-billion in 2024.

This is a reduction of about $4.25-billion, not $15-billion. Imports also did not fall to $10-billion. We rate the claim as incorrect. – Catherine Adeniyi

Claim: “130-million Nigerians are in multi-dimensional poverty, a figure from a few years back that people like to quote a lot.”

Verdict: Unproven

Fasua said 130-million Nigerians lived in multidimensional poverty, a measure that goes beyond income to include deprivations in health, education and living standards.

The World Bank defines it as a “pronounced deprivation in well-being”. Its latest data showed 74-million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor in 2024. 

Nigeria’s data tells different story

The 130-million figure likely comes from Nigeria’s first national multidimensional poverty index, published by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2022. 

Based on surveys from late 2021 to early 2022, it measured 15 indicators across four areas: health, education, living standards and employment.

The resulting index found 133-million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor, compared to 82.9-million living in income-based poverty (less than N137 430 per person per year) in 2019.

The NBS said the two measures captured different aspects of poverty and were complementary, but the figures were not directly comparable because they came from different years, in addition to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prof Uche Isiugo-Abanihe, a demography expert at the University of Ibadan in western Nigeria, told Africa Check the 2022 figure was outdated. He cited recent policies such as the controversial removal of the fuel subsidyrising inflation and higher living costs as drivers of change.

“[So] any figure given now is speculative, because government social policies and interventions since then could have changed the numbers, we may have either lower or higher numbers, we never know unless another survey is conducted,” Isiugo-Abanihe said.

He added that while there were social cash transfer programmes, “in my opinion, these monies are like a drop in the ocean”. – Catherine Adeniyi

Claim: “Nigeria has one of the lowest budgets per capita in the world in dollar terms.”

Verdict: Unproven

While arguing for a bigger 2026 budget, Fasua claimed that Nigeria’s budget allocation per person was among the world’s lowest, but offered no data to support this.

“Budget per capita is the total budget in a year divided by the total population, and usually that will give you an indication of what the government is spending per individual,” said Prof Olasupo Alege of Covenant University in western Nigeria.  

However, there’s no official global ranking for this. Instead, institutions like the World Bank classify countries by income level: low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high-income, mainly for analysis and comparison.

Nigeria falls in the lower-middle-income category. To test Fasua’s claim, we compared its budget per capita with other countries in the same income group and with large populations.

In 2024, Nigeria’s budget per capita was $83.6, far below Pakistan ($270), Bangladesh ($397.2), India ($397.4), Egypt ($733.1), Indonesia ($745.4) and the Philippines ($869).

Alege said such comparisons were only valid between similar economies, cautioning against comparing countries like Nigeria and the US, which had very different income sources and budget systems.

While data shows Nigeria’s budget per capita is lower than many other lower-middle-income countries, the lack of a definitive global ranking means results can vary depending on which countries are included. 

We therefore rate the claim as unproven. – Catherine Adeniyi

Claim: “In 2019, Nigeria’s budget per capita was only better than the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Verdict: Unproven

With no official global ranking for budget per capita to verify this claim, we used public data to compare Nigeria with four other large African countries of similar or lower income level. 

We converted their 2019 budgets to US dollars using each country’s exchange rate at the time.

Egypt ranked highest, at $805.9, followed by Tanzania, at $211. Nigeria placed third with $124.9, ahead of Ethiopia ($100.8) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ($57.5).

Alege said comparisons within Africa were valid, but had to be made carefully. He said that “even if you come to Africa, you have to be very careful, the economy of South Africa is more buoyant than our own economy, there are so many things that do not put us in the same basket”. 

This analysis shows it is possible more than one other country has a lower budget per capita than Nigeria, but because this significantly depends on which factors are considered,, we rate the claim as unproven. – Catherine Adeniyi

Claim: “This economy is certainly not a $188-billion economy – it is at least a $350-billion economy.”

Verdict: Mostly Correct

Fasua claimed Nigeria’s economy was worth at least $350-billion, not the $188-billion earlier reported by the National Bureau of Statistics for 2024. 

Two days later, the NBS announced that, after rebasing the economy – changing the base year from 2010 to 2019 – Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) was N372.9 trillion (about $244-billion) in 2024. 

The rebasing aimed to provide a more accurate picture of the economy’s size and structure and to capture emerging sectors. 

The updated numbers ended up supporting Fasua’s argument that the economy was much larger than recorded at the time, though his estimate overshot the new number by more than $100-billion. – Allwell Okpi 

Claim: “There are about 30-million cattle in Nigeria; they are worth N30 trillion.”

Verdict: Incorrect

This claim stems from Fasua’s defence of his estimate that Nigeria’s economy was worth at least $350-billion. He argued that Nigeria’s cattle population alone was worth N30 trillion ($19.6-billion) and contributed to that figure.

Fasua said the country had about 30-million cattle and, at an average price of N1-million each, their total value would be N30 trillion.

But available data puts the cattle population closer to 20-million.

The Centre for Supporting Evidence-Based Intervention in Livestock estimated 16.58-million in 2020, while 2025 Food and Agriculture Organization data put the figure at 20.91-million in 2023.

Faulty calculation

It was incorrect to calculate GDP by simply multiplying the price of a cow by the number of cows, Baba Musa, head of national accounts at the NBS, told Africa Check. 

“GDP is the value of all goods and services in a year. However, calculating it is not that straightforward. A lot goes into the calculation. We utilise global standards and best practices, ensuring Nigeria’s GDP is comparable to that of other countries.”

According to Musa, this included: 

  • The system of national accounts – an internationally agreed standard for measuring economic economic activity.
  • The International Standard Industrial Classification and the Central Product Classification – for categorising based on their characteristics and nature.

The Supply and Use Table, which tracks the origin of goods and services and how  they are used. – Allwell Okpi 

Claim: “The price of palm oil has doubled in the last few months.”

Verdict: Incorrect

Fasua argued that, beyond statistics, life was improving for Nigerians, pointing to a recent doubling of oil prices, which he said benefitted sellers. 

Palm oil is a reddish edible oil from the oil palm fruit, widely grown in southern Nigeria and other tropical regions in West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. 

Nigeria is the fifth-largest producer after Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Colombia. 

A Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research report shows palm oil prices rose by 101.2% in 2024, from N1.17-million per ton in April to N2.47-million in December, based on state and national averages. 

The report linked the rise to factors such as supply and demand, production costs, government policies, seasonality, global market trends, exchange rate changes and overall inflation. 

Nigeria imports about half of the 2-million tons of palm oil it consumes annually.

Prices fell during the first five months of 2025, then climbed in May after Indonesia, the world’s top producer, raised its export tax from 7.5% to 10%. 

Fasua’s claim holds true for 2024, when prices doubled, but data for the first seven months of 2025 does not support a recent doubling. – Allwell Okpi 

BONUS CLAIMS

Fasua’s Arise News TV host, Rufai Oseni, also weighed in with claims of his own, and we looked at two. 

Claim: “Export of crude oil declined by 50% in 2024.”

Verdict: Incorrect

Nigeria produces-millions of barrels of crude oil daily but exports most of it unrefined, relying heavily on imported refined products to meet domestic fuel needs. 

While introducing the show, Oseni said Nigeria’s crude oil exports had fallen by half, attributing this claim to Fasua, who did not dispute it. Fasua had also been quoted by Arise TV earlier as making the same statement.

However, NBS data tells a different story. Its foreign trade in goods statistics report shows steady growth in crude oil exports throughout 2024 compared to 2023. 

Overall, crude oil exports nearly doubled in value between 2023 and 2024, from N29.5-billion to N57.2-billion, and made up for 72.4% of Nigeria’s total export earnings in 2024.

– Catherine Adeniyi 

Claim: “The budget performance rate is low; the minister of health said only 15% of his capital budget was serviced."

Verdict: Correct

Nigeria is currently operating three budgets at once because of poor budget performance

In January 2025, federal lawmakers rated the 2024 budget’s overall performance at 43%. While recurrent spending reached 100%,  it was only 25% for capital expenditure. 

The senate extended the deadline for the 2024 capital budget, first to June 2025, then December

That same month, health minister Muhammed Ali Pate said just 15.06% of his ministry’s 2024 capital budget had been released and spent, or “serviced”. – Allwell Okpi 

Researched by Taryn Khourie

This report was written by Africa Check., a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website.

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