Tinubu misfires on Nigeria’s daily oil production, quotes 400,000 bpd  

The 2023 presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at the inauguration of the APC women’s campaign team in Abuja for the 2023 presidential campaign, misfired on the daily oil production of Nigeria,  saying that Nigeria was producing “400,000” barrels of oil per day with global prices at their “worst” when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office on May 29, 2015.

According to Tinubu, “Buhari took over the least…the lowest production…400,000 thousand barrels of oil, the worst pricing in the crude oil.”

However, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), indicated that the average daily oil production in the first quarter of 2015 was 2.18 million barrels per day (bpd) and 2.05 million bpd in the next quarter, including April, May, and June 2015.

Also, statistics from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), indicated that Nigeria’s oil production for May 2015 when Buhari became president was 2.05 million bpd; 2.03 million bpd in the previous month and 1.97 million bpd the next month.

The statistics clearly shows that Nigeria was producing over four times the figure Tinubu quoted.

Daily oil production, however, fell under the leadership of President Buhari  between 2016 and 2021, falling to the lowest figure of 1.5 million bpd at the end of 2021, and 940,000 bpd in September 2022,  according to the  NBS quarterly data.

Oil prices dropped during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, not Buhair’s era. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that oil prices rose to $107.95 on June 20, 2014, then, dropped to $44.08 in January 2015. Buhari became President in May 2015.

However, after Buhari assumed office in May 2015, oil prices began to rise, Bonny Light crude oil was sold at $65,08 per barrel.

CBN statistics shows that oil price rose to $130 in June 2022, the highest since January 2006.