An X user, @Mario9jaa posted a claim that Nigeria’s ex-president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his team inherited a foreign reserve of over $50 billion naira when he assumed office.
His post reads, “If Jonathan and his mismanagement team did not happen to Nigeria,we should be on about $200 billion naira foreign reserves by now. Man inherited over $50 billion naira and blew it away without any concrete thing to point to. Tueh”
The claim had garnered about 60,000 views, 291 comments, 161 reposts and quotes, about 600 likes and 16 bookmarks as of the time this report was published. NV-A took a look at the country’s foreign reserve to confirm the authenticity of the figures claimed.
VERIFICATION
When our fact-checker reviewed the Central Bank of Nigeria foreign reserves data, we found that the country had a gross reserve of 40,101,372,983 billion dollars and a liquid reserve of 37,862,030,609 billion dollars as of May 5, 2010 when Jonathan was sworn in as president after late Umar Yar’adua’s death.
On May 31, 2011, two days after Jonathan was sworn in as the president for a four-year term, the CBN data showed that the foreign reserve was at: gross, 32,080,276,961 billion dollars and liquid 30,245,238,441 billion dollars. By May 28, 2015, a day before former president Jonathan left office on May 29, 2015, the foreign reserve figure stood at: gross, 29,595,284,789 billion dollars and liquid 28,719,649,022 billion dollars.
A thorough look at the CBN foreign reserve data revealed that between February 9, 2010 when Jonathan was made the acting president and May 29, 2015 when he left office as the president of Nigeria, the country’s highest foreign reserve was at 48 billion dollars between March and June 2013.
CONCLUSION
Findings showed that ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan inherited less than the amount stipulated in the post. Hence, the claim that the former president inherited over $50bn in foreign reserves is MISLEADING.
By Mutiat Ahmed
