DURING election seasons, Nigerian politicians often make several claims about critical issues, especially on economy and governance, in a bid to convince the citizens that they are fit for political offices. But when subjected to verification by fact-checkers, some of these claims have been found to be inaccurate – a development that further exposes the public to misinformation.

As the 2023 elections beckon, one of the top contenders aiming to succeed the current Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, is former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

In this analysis, The FactCheckHub recounts five out of several times that the PDP presidential candidate made misleading claims while speaking about his plans for the country.

As a non-partisan platform, it will be recalled that The FactCheckHub had also reported the four misleading claims Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, made this year.

Speaking during an hour-long pre-recorded interview with Arise TV aired on July 22, 2022, Atiku, while defending the reason why he decided to re-contest for the presidential seat, having failed four times, said the 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln “ran up to five, six times before becoming the president of the United States”.

But a fact-check by AFP shows that Abraham Lincoln never contested the presidential election five or six times as Atiku claimed.

Even though Lincoln failed to win various elections, he only ran...

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