[b]Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has been caught again making fallacious claims about the value of Nigeria’s exports.

Twice, he was caught claiming that the country exported less than $30 billion of goods and services in 2021, underperforming smaller African peers such as Morocco.

Obi argued that Nigeria was “not a producing country” and has a weak export base, causing dollar scarcity in the country.

However, the French news agency AFP after factchecking him, found that his statement was false.

Official data shows annual exports from Nigeria have exceeded $30 billion for well over a decade.

Obi first made the claim during an hour-long interview that was aired on July 6, 2022, by Nigerian broadcaster Arise Television.

“Morocco is about 36 million, their export last year was over 50 billion dollars,” said Obi.

“In our own [exports] with oil included, it’s under 30 billion [dollars] and we’re 200 million [people]. Morocco didn’t export any oil.”

About two weeks later, he repeated the claim during a visit to Abia state.

“Nigeria is a country with 923,000 square kilometres of land, and a population of 200 million people. God blessed us with oil and other resources. We have over 100 million people living in poverty,” Obi said in the second interview.

“But to show that we are not a producing country, last year, our total export including oil was less than 30 billion dollars, that is why we can’t find dollars today.”

Indeed, Nigeria is the largest exporter of crude oil in Africa.

The commodity, which accounted for more than two-thirds of total exports in 2021, is the country’s biggest source of dollar inflows.

However, oil output fell in the first five months of 2022, raising fresh concerns about the country’s economic output and currency stability.

According to the World Bank, the value of Nigeria’s total exports in 2019 was US$ 53.6 billion. Macrotrends even estimated it to be $63.6 billion. Oil and gas accounted for $41 billion of the figure.

Morocco exported goods worth $47 billion in the same year.

In 2021, Nigeria shipped US$47.6 billion worth of goods around the globe.

donphilopus:


https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2022/08/05/peter-obi-caught-lying-again-on-tv/?amp=1

QUESTIONS WHICH ALL THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SHOULD BE ANSWERING TO THE CITIZENS OF NIGERIA
Dear Atiku, Tinubu, Obi, Kwankwaso, Umeadi, Sowore, Abiola, And The Lots Of You That I Could Not Mention Here...
I greet you..
..
I want to ask you guys some quick questions.
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If you become the next president of Nigeria, are you going to do these things below for Nigeria and for Nigerians??
..
Please your excellencies,
find ways to address these issues, and let us know where exactly we are with you guys...
.
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1. How would your presidency instill the inter-personal security-consciousness and brotherly protection in the citizens, rather than the greedy animosity and selfish survival instincts that we are currently gradually degenerating into.??
.
2. How would your presidency convert the vast natural sources of energy in Nigeria into Electricity??
- Especially the Solar energy, the BioGas-Energy from the wastes generated in the homes and farms and sewage, the wind energy from the arid and semi-arid areas, etc.??
.
3. How would your presidency make the citizens to increase the trust they have in your policies and in the institutions and persons that would be implementing these policies of yours?? That is, are you going to establish adequate feedback mechanisms where the citizens would promptly respond and relay back to you on how the policies are directly or indirectly affecting them, without you as the president expecting to get the results of these policies only from the reports of the same people that were implementing the policies??
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4. How exactly would your presidency correct all these impunity which the Nigerian Security Agencies are employing while maltreating and intimidating the people??
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5. How would your presidency make it possible for criminal cases and civil cases (and even cordial cases) to be reported to the Nigeria Police Force anonymously through phone-calls or online interactions, without having to go to the police station to write statements??
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6. How would your presidency make the lawyers and the judges to be more interested in settling cases and suits in line with the best international standards of practice, and not having themselves influenced by gratifications and kickbacks??
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7. What exactly would your presidency do, so that the average men on the streets would naturally REDUCE their quests for gathering lots of riches from any means possible just for the sake of luxurious spendings??
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8. What would your presidency do, so that the average men on the streets would naturally INCREASE their quest for acquiring meaningful personal values to themselves, and be thinking more about providing better life to themselves and to the people around them through the things they produce, or the services they render.??
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9. What would your presidency do, so that the average men on the streets would instinctively realise that it is better to be known for something tangible attached to his name, rather than to be known for just spending money and throwing money around?? Like, apart from the things money can do, what else does he do?? Like, what does he do exactly as a living person that earns him his living??
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10. What exactly would your presidency do, so as to instill the sense of self-discipline, self-control, and orderliness in the minds of the average men of the streets as they go about their daily activities.??
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11. What would your presidency do, so that “Paying of Taxes” becomes a natural part of the citizens, and at the same time, becomes the true representation of the worth of the citizens?? Thus, the very rich ones should pay very high taxes.. And the lesser ones should pay lower taxes.. And then, the very poor ones and unemployed ones have to get paid some stipends by the government, until they find something doing, and start paying their own taxes too according to their earnings and spendings.??
..
12. What would your presidency do about the way people carry out their daily career and business activities, so that all the Government Workers (and also, all the employed workers of private firms and Individual businesses) would have active ways to be applying proper checks and balances in place, and reduce the rate at which they abandon their works to do things that are not part of their works, or to collect funds that are not part of what they are supposed to collect.??
..

Vulturereloaded:
Though i am supporting Tinubu, but i feel ashamed when we are looking for lies in Peter Obi as a campaign strategy, after 8 years. It makes it seem like we have failed Nigerians.

If we have nothing else to campaign with, then i might as well be campaigning for Tinubu with Peter Obis picture, since he is our only achievement.