Estimated reading time: 8 minute(s)
Quadri Yahya
Claim:
The presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi made several claims about Nigeria’s arable land and her age population.
Verdict:
While one of the claims is false, the other is partly correct.
Full Text:
As Nigeria approaches the 2023 election, presidential candidates are coming out to flaunt that they are fully prepared to rescue the country from its challenges.
It is on this backdrop that the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, made some claims about the country’s cultivated arable land and age population.
Obi made the claims in a series of tweets on his verified Twitter handle on September 4, 2022.
In one of his tweets, Obi stated that Nigeria has over 84 million hectares of arable land and barely 40% of this arable land is cultivated today.
Obi said this while stating that Nigeria needs to look beyond its oil (crude oil) as a natural resource.
He also shared his thoughts on the country’s age population.
The claims had garnered over 9k likes and 3k retweets and 40 quote tweets.
The LP candidate has become more popular with his supporters known as ‘Obidient’ actively promoting Obi’s presidential ambition for the 2023 election both physically and on social media, especially on the Twitter app.
PLATFORM TIMES decided to verify this claim to set the record straight so that politicians will not hoodwink the people.
Claim 1:
Nigeria has over 84 million hectares of arable land. Barely 40% of this arable land is cultivated today.
Verification:
Findings by PLATFORM TIMES however showed data contrary to Obi’s claim.
According to data obtained from Statista and World Bank websites, Nigeria has an arable land area of 34 million hectares.
PLATFORM TIMES found that of this 34 million hectares, 75.9% of the land is agricultural land.
Agricultural land refers to the share of land area that is arable, under permanent crops, and under permanent pastures.
Claim 2:
We must give this country back to the Nigerian youths. Half of our 200 million people are below the age of 30.
The median age of this country stands at 17.9, showing that Nigeria has the incredible potential to develop, if she harnesses the demographic dividends intelligently.
Verification:
Nigeria’s 2020 population is estimated at 206 million people, according to the National Population Commission and the World Bank.
The country has the largest population of youth in the world, with a median age of 18.1 years. About 70% of the population are under 30.
Conclusion:
PLATFORM TIMES can conclude that while one of the claims made by Peter Obi, the LP flag bearer for the 2023 election is false, one of them is partly correct.
The claim that Nigeria has over 84 million hectares of arable land is false.
Also, the claim that half of our 200 million people are below the age of 30 is correct.
Lastly, the claim median age of the country stands at 17.9 is incorrect.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s)
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