The governorship candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in Lagos State, Funso Doherty, has pushed back against fact-checkers at the Lagos Governorship Debate, accusing them of wrongly flagging his claim about the state’s internally generated revenue as false information. He has also demanded an apology over what he described as an incorrect assessment of his submission during the debate.
In a post on X on Sunday, Doherty said the fact-checkers were wrong to challenge his assertion that Lagos generates more revenue than 31 states combined. He insisted that his claim rested on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which he said 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,” Doherty wrote. “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).”
To buttress his position, the NDC candidate shared a list of the states and their revenue figures, citing the NBS microdata portal as his source.
The dispute and the debate
The disagreement followed a 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 argued that Lagos’s challenge is not a shortage of financial resources but the failure of successive administrations to convert 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, contending that residents continue to bear the burden of inadequate government services despite the state’s substantial earnings.
What the NBS data shows
The NBS report on 2025 internally generated revenue 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.
Why the revenue argument matters
Doherty’s challenge to the fact-checkers highlights a broader argument he has advanced about governance and accountability in Lagos. By pointing to the state’s revenue performance relative to other states, he seeks to shift the debate from the availability of funds to how those funds are managed and whether they translate into tangible improvements in the lives of residents.
The dispute also underscores the growing role of fact-checking in Nigeria’s political debates, where candidates’ claims are increasingly subjected to real-time scrutiny. For Doherty, the accuracy of the revenue comparison is central to his campaign message that Lagos is not short of money but short of effective leadership willing to deploy it for public good.
With the 2027 governorship election approaching, the exchange over the N1.77tn figure is likely to remain a talking point, as candidates seek to define the terms of debate around the state’s finances and the quality of public services delivered to its residents.
