Opposition politician falsely claims Nigeria has shut down five state-run agencies

An adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said in February that the government would implement parts of a white paper that recommended the scrapping and merging of some state-owned entities. Weeks later, social media posts alleged that the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and three others were among those to be scrapped. But the claim is false. None of the government agencies mentioned in the claims is slated for closure. Moreover, a committee set up by the government to work out the framework for shutting down or merging state entities has yet to submit its report.

“FG finally scraps FRCN, ICPC, NCDC, NCC, NTA, several others,” reads a post shared on an X account called “Instablog9ja” on April 19, 2024.

The ICPC, NCDC and NCC respectively refer to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Crimes Commission, National Centre for Disease Control and Nigerian Communications Commission.

Nigerian opposition politician Dino Melaye shared the claim on his X, Instagram and Facebook accounts. Other accounts on X (here and here) and Facebook shared the same video and claim.

The post includes a six-minute clip featuring Bala Hadiza Usman, an adviser to Tinubu on policy coordination.

“Our administration has taken a bold step towards the implementation of an aspect Oronsaye panel report, which speaks to mergers, subsuming, scrapping and relocation of parastatals, agencies and commissions,” Usman says at the start of the footage.

The Oronsaye report, completed in 2012 and released as part of a white paper by the Nigerian government in 2014, recommended mergers and scrapping of some government offices to cut costs (archived here).

However, the claim that Nigeria has scrapped the five agencies is false.

Agencies not scrapped

AFP Fact Check took a screenshot of the clip and carried out a reverse image search.

We found that the video of Usman had been online since February 26, 2024, when the government first announced its plan to implement the white paper (archived here).

This was two months before Melaye had suggested that the decision was taken on April 19, 2024, when he shared the claim (archived here).

A statement (archived here) posted by Tinubu’s media adviser Bayo Onanuga on X on February 27, 2024, showed that only two agencies — the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) and the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC) — were earmarked for scrapping.

According to the statement, 15 agencies -- including the FRCN mentioned in the claim -- were slated for mergers with others performing similar functions.

Nine more would be subsumed as either departments or units into existing ministries, commissions or agencies while four were expected to be relocated to new ministries.

However, none of the entities mentioned in the claims are slated for scrapping, nor did Usman say they were on the chopping block.

Meanwhile, the government set up a committee on March 7, 2024, to work out how the agencies would either be scrapped or merged (archived here). That committee has 12 weeks to submit its report.