FORMER Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, has once again claimed that security and economy improved significantly in Nigeria during his eight-year democratic presidency.
He said this on February 5, 2025, when he received members of the Katsina State Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists at his country home, Daura, Katsina State who were on a courtesy visit.
Buhari claimed that before his administration, challenges of security and economy were rocking the West African country, insisting that his administration significantly curbed the menace of terrorism and economic meltdown in the nation.
This is not the first time that the former president would be making such claims. He had earlier made similar claims in his farewell speech and in his response to Bloomberg’s questions published on June 21, 2022, where he said his administration would be leaving Nigeria “in a far better place” than he met it.
CLAIM 1
Buhari says Nigeria’s security improved under his administration.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is MOSTLY FALSE.
Nigeria has experienced a rise in insecurity since 2015, according to data from the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that tracks violent incidents in the country from 2015 to 2022. The data reveals that at least 11,449 violent attacks occurred during this period.
An analysis by The FactCheckHub shows a consistent increase in violent incidents, including banditry, attacks on unarmed civilians, and mass abductions, particularly during Buhari administration.
The recorded cases of violent attacks were 882 in 2015, 825 in 2016, 947 in 2017, 1,172 in 2018, 1,549 in 2019, 1,867 in 2020, 2,285 in 2021, and 1,922 in 2022.
Despite some progress in Nigeria’s ranking on the Global Terrorism Index—moving from the 4th most terrorism-impacted country in 2017 to the 6th in 2021 and the 8th in 2022—data suggest that while terrorist activities declined in the Northeast, insecurity spread to other parts of the country during Buhari’s tenure.
Between May 29, 2015, and May 29, 2022, at least 55,430 people were killed by terrorist groups and criminal gangs nationwide. Kidnapping also remained a major issue, with no fewer than 2,021 Nigerians abducted during the same period.
Additionally, Buhari’s tenure witnessed Nigeria’s worst displacement crisis in history. Data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre indicate that millions of Nigerians were forced to flee their homes due to insecurity. In 2022 alone, at least 3.6 million people were displaced.
THE VERDICT
The claim by Buhari that Nigeria’s security improved under his administration is MOSTLY FALSE; security situation in the West African country worsened between 2015 and 2023.
CLAIM 2
Buhari says Nigeria’s economy improved under his administration.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
In terms of the economy, an analysis of Nigeria’s consumer price index by The ICIR shows that the inflation rate rose 59 times under Buhari’s eight-year administration.
When he assumed office in May 2015, the inflation rate was 9 per cent. However, by the time he handed over power on May 29, 2023, it had risen to a significant 22.22 per cent — more than double what he met when he assumed office in 2015.
In 2022, The ICIR also reported that Nigerians have been struggling to feed due to an over 100 per cent hike in key staple food prices since 2015 when Buhari assumed office as Nigeria’s president.
In addition, when he took over power in the second quarter of 2015, the unemployment rate rose to 9.9 per cent in the third quarter of that year from 8.2 per cent in the second quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Since then, unemployment, poverty, and economic disempowerment have remained a disturbing feature of Nigerian life.
The data on the NBS dashboard show that Nigeria’s unemployment rate was 33.3 per cent, translating to some 23.2 million people, the highest in at least 13 years and the second-highest rate in the world, as of March 2021.
The exchange rate had also experienced a significant increase in the eight years of Buhari’s presidency. At the start of Buhari’s tenure in 2015, the Naira-to-Dollar value was fixed at N192.64. However, it rose to N461, marking a 139 per cent increase under Buhari administration.
Buhari moved Nigeria’s debt profile from N42 trillion to N77 trillion. This has had attendant effects on debt servicing, which rose from N1.06 trillion in 2015 to N5.24 trillion as of 2022. In fact, under Buhari administration, the debt-service-to-revenue ratio grew from 29 per cent to 96 per cent.
Regarding poverty, there was an alarming rise during the Buhari administration. The percentage of Nigerians living in poverty increased from 40.1 per cent to 63 per cent of the entire population.
In June 2023, the World Poverty Clock also put the number of people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria at 83 million, or 39 per cent of the population, while the country’s total population stood at 214 million.
Also, between 2014 and 2019, Nigeria dropped nine places on the Global Human Development Index, HDI, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The country was ranked 152 out of 187 countries in 2014. But, in 2019, the index placed Nigeria 161 out of 189 countries worldwide. The country scored low on all three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living.
Also, between May 2015 and 2023, the Nigerian economy had fallen into recession twice. Under Buhari’s stewardship, the economy fell into recession, first, in 2016 when the economy contracted 2.06 per cent between April and June, and in 2020 when COVID-19 decimated economies all over the world.
THE VERDICT
The claim that Nigeria’s economy improved under the Buhari administration is FALSE; data show that most of the nation’s economic indices worsened under his administration.
Nurudeen Akewushola is an investigative reporter and fact-checker with The ICIR. He believes courageous in-depth investigative reporting is the key to social justice, accountability and good governance in society. You can reach him via nyahaya@icirnigeria.org and @NurudeenAkewus1 on Twitter.