Lagos Guber Candidate Questions Fact-Checkers Over Revenue Claims

The governorship candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress in Lagos State, Funso Doherty, has taken on the fact-checkers from Sunday’s Lagos Governorship Debate. He accused them of wrongly saying he provided false information.

Doherty is asking for an apology for what he calls a wrong evaluation of his claim about Lagos's internally generated revenue.

In a post on X on Sunday, Doherty insisted the fact-checkers were incorrect when they challenged his statement during the debate. He said Lagos earns more revenue than 31 other states put together.

He argued that his claim comes from the National Bureau of Statistics. This data shows Lagos State's internally generated revenue at N1.77 trillion, while 31 other states generated N1.73 trillion 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 their revenue numbers to back up his point, using the NBS microdata portal as his source.

This argument came after the debate organized by the Nigeria Debate Consortium. This group includes The PUNCH, Channels Television, TVC News, TheCable, and Vanguard Newspaper, ahead of the 2027 Lagos governorship election.

In his opening remarks, Doherty pointed out that Lagos's problem is not a lack of funds but the failure of past governments to turn the state's huge revenue into better living conditions for the people.

He used the revenue figures to question how well the government provides basic services like healthcare and education. He said residents still suffer from poor government services despite the state’s large earnings.

The NBS report on 2025 IGR showed that Lagos generated about N1.77 trillion, the highest of all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The report noted that the total IGR for all states and the FCT was N5.15 trillion.

The Nigerian Fact-checkers’ Coalition later released a breakdown that showed the combined revenue of the 31 states at about N1.574 trillion. They rated the main claim that Lagos generated more than the 31 states combined as correct.