Published 29th May, 2024

By Joseph Adeiye

Bola Ahmed Tinubu officially became Nigeria’s president on May 29, 2023. He has since managed to sell investment deals that never happened to Nigerians.

Leading Tinubu’s disinformation team were the president’s special advisers and spokespersons, Bayo Onanuga, Olusegun Dada and Ajuri Ngelale.

FIJ fact-checked the presidential trio after they posted inaccurate and false details about Tinubu’s international engagements over the past year.

On one occasion, Ngelale misled national dailies by claiming that the United Arab Emirates raised a visa ban it had placed on Nigerian travellers while Tinubu was on a state visit to the UAE.

FIJ has observed a trend of bilateral investment deal misinformation and disinformation from Tinubu’s presidency.

$600 MILLION MAERSK INVESTMENT

“President Bola Tinubu has secured an investment of $600 million from Danish shipping and logistics company, A.P Moller-Maersk, to expand existing port infrastructure to accommodate more container shipping services in Nigerian ports,” Dada posted on X in April.

Contacts close to the presidency did not refute the $600 million investment claims. Within hours, some newspapers published stories about the Tinubu government securing $600 million from Maersk.

The following day, Maersk told reporters that there was no confirmation of such an investment yet. The Tinubu government came under pressure to clarify what it had failed to make clear about the A.P Moller-Maersk investment deal.

Dada returned two days later to share a second-hand explanation from one Muhammad Faruk.

Faruk’s piece claimed that “individuals may have overlooked the details of the initial FGN press statement and failed to juxtapose it with the subsequent Maersk statement, leading to a misinterpretation of both narratives”.

Onanuga, the special adviser on information and strategy to Tinubu, also deleted his post claiming that the president secured an investment commitment from Maersk, a global shipping firm.

$240 MILLION INVESTMENT FROM BRAZILIAN ENTITY

Tinubu’s special adviser on social media shared another update on X in similar fashion to the $600 million Maersk misinformation on Sunday.

This time, Dada posted that a Brazilian entity had pledged to invest $240 million in Nigeria. He attached a news link to his post. Tens of thousands of people have seen the post.

It was proving difficult to verify the multi-million-dollar investment claim when the link to the news was broken.

The news webpage was still down when FIJ checked on Wednesday. Dada has not posted an update or clarification on the $240 million ever since.

False claim by president Tinubu’s special adviser on social media,Olusegun Dada, who posted on X that a Brazilian entity had pledged to invest $240 million in Nigeria.

$14 BILLION INVESTMENT FROM G20 SUMMIT

Ngelale signed a statement on September 14 claiming Rivers Governor Sim Fubara hailed Tinubu for securing $14 billion in investment approval.

“The Governor applauded the President for attracting a $14 billion dollars investment approval for projects nationwide during the G-20 Summit,” Ngelale’s statement read in part.

Five days later, Dada said that Tinubu got “investment commitments of about $14 billion from investors” from the G20 New Delhi summit.

The investors in question for such a great financial commitment remain unknown, and the modalities of the purported investments are unclear.

For one of the biggest investment claims in the first year of the Tinubu administration, the details remain sketchy. Too sketchy.

This adds to a trend of dubious public announcements of bold economic moves that characterise Tinubu’s first year in office.

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