Data shows Lagos is Not Africa’s third-biggest economy, as claimed by officials of Nigerian ruling party (APC). Lagos is Ninth (9th).

By Tonye BAKARE, AFP Nigeria

Lagos is Ninth, not third-largest economy

Officials of Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have alleged that Lagos State is the third-largest economy in Africa. The claim spread after an influential ex-governor of the state, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was nominated as the APC’s candidate for the presidential election set for February 2023. His running mate, Kashim Shettima, made the same assertion at a recent lawyers’ conference. But AFP Fact Check found this to be false: official data shows that, though the state is Nigeria’s biggest economy, it is not among the top five economies on the continent.

Ninth, not third-largest economy

AFP Fact Check searched the website of the state’s ministry of economic planning and budget and found a document that shows the GDP figures of the state between 2013 and 2021.

The report was issued by the Macro Economic Statistics Division of the Lagos Bureau of Statistics (LBS).

The agency confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the document was authentic and could have only been published on the website after the approval of the commissioner in charge of the ministry.

According to the official document, Lagos’s GDP was 26.587 trillion naira in 2021 (US$75.965 billion at the time).  

That figure represents about 15.3 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, which stood at 173.527 trillion naira during the same period.

In terms of percentage contribution to the national GDP, the 2021 figure was the lowest contributed by the state over a five-year period between 2017 and 2021. The document cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a key reason for the decline.

A screenshot of the Lagos State GDP report, taken August 28, 2022

World Bank data shows Lagos State is not Africa’s third-largest economy – whether it is subtracted from or counted as part of Nigeria’s national gross domestic product.

According to the report, the country’s GDP was the largest on the continent in 2021 at US$440 billion.

Eight biggest economies in Africa in 2021 ( World Bank data / )

The value of Lagos State for the same year was US$75.965 billion.

This places it behind the economies of five countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana) and three in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria and Morocco).