NDC candidate faults Lagos debate fact-checkers over N1.77tn IGR claim

The governorship candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress in Lagos State, Funso Doherty, has challenged the fact-checkers at Sunday’s Lagos Governorship Debate for accusing him of giving out false information.

He also demanded an apology over what he described as an incorrect assessment of his claim about the state’s internally generated revenue.

Doherty, in a post on X on Sunday, said the fact-checkers were wrong to challenge his assertion during the debate that Lagos generated more revenue than 31 states combined.

He maintained that his claim was based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics, which put Lagos State’s internally generated revenue at N1.77tn, compared with N1.73tn generated by 31 other states combined in 2025.

“The debate fact-checkers called me out during the debate but they got it wrong.

“Precisely as I said in my opening statement, according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics data, Lagos does earn more IGR than 31 states combined: N1.77tn vs N1.73tn (NBS, 2025).

“An apology is in order I believe,” he wrote.

Doherty also shared a list of the states and the revenue figures to support his position, citing the NBS microdata portal as his source.

The dispute followed the debate organised by the Nigeria Debate Consortium, comprising The PUNCH, Channels Television, TVC News, TheCable and Vanguard Newspaper, ahead of the 2027 Lagos governorship election.

In his opening remarks, Doherty had argued that Lagos’s challenge was not a shortage of financial resources but the failure of successive administrations to translate the state’s enormous revenue into better living conditions for residents.

He used the revenue comparison to question the delivery of essential public services, including healthcare and education, arguing that residents continued to bear the burden of inadequate government services despite the state’s substantial earnings.

The NBS report on 2025 IGR showed that Lagos generated approximately N1.77tn, the highest among the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The report put the combined IGR of all states and the FCT at N5.15tn.

The Nigerian Fact-checkers’ Coalition subsequently published a breakdown putting the combined revenue of the 31 states at approximately N1.574tn and rated the central claim that Lagos generated more than the 31 states combined as correct.(Punch)