FACT-CHECK: No Evidence Peter Obi Promised to Visit Every Secondary School in Nigeria as President
BY: Habeeb Adisa
Claim:
Peter Obi said: “I will visit every Secondary school in Nigeria as President.”
Verdict:
False. The Facebook video shared with the claim does not contain the quoted statement. FactCheckAfrica also found no credible video, speech, interview or transcript in which Peter Obi made the promise. Instead, available evidence shows he pledged to visit at least 10 universities every year if elected president and recalled that he had visited over 500 secondary schools while serving as governor of Anambra State.
Full Text:
A Facebook user shared a 23-second video of Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, with the caption:
“I visited every Secondary School in Anambra as Governor, I will visit every Secondary school in Nigeria as President – Peter Obi
The caption presents the statement as a direct quote from Obi and implies that he made the remark in the accompanying video.
However, a review of the 23-second clip shows that Peter Obi never made the statement attributed to him. At no point in the video does he say he would visit every secondary school in Nigeria if elected president.
The discrepancy prompted FactCheckAfrica to verify whether Obi made the statement elsewhere in any publicly available speech, interview or campaign appearance.
Verification:
FactCheckAfrica reviewed the Facebook video accompanying the claim and found that the alleged quotation is absent from the footage.
We subsequently searched for the exact quote and closely related variations across publicly available videos, campaign speeches, interviews and media reports featuring Peter Obi.
Our search found no credible evidence, whether in a video, transcript or news report—that Obi ever said:
“I will visit every Secondary school in Nigeria as President.”
Instead, we found that during a town hall meeting with youths in Port Harcourt in December 2022, Obi made a different pledge regarding education.
According to reports by TheNiche, TheNation, and Pulse Nigeria, Obi promised that if elected president, he would personally monitor the nation’s tertiary institutions by visiting at least 10 universities every year.
He said:
“I assure you that when I become president I will visit at least 10 universities in a year.”
In the same speech, Obi referred to his record as governor of Anambra State, stating:
“I visited over 500 secondary schools when I was a governor in Anambra and all their school prefects have my phone number and I deal with them directly.”
These remarks are materially different from the viral claim. While Obi spoke about his past visits to secondary schools as governor and pledged to visit 10 universities annually if elected president, he did not promise to visit every secondary school in Nigeria.
FactCheckAfrica found no evidence that the alleged quote appears in any publicly available campaign speech, interview or video.
Conclusion:
The claim that Peter Obi said, “I will visit every Secondary school in Nigeria as President,” is false. The Facebook video cited as evidence does not contain the alleged statement, and FactCheckAfrica found no credible video or transcript in which Obi made such a promise. Rather, verified reports show that he pledged to visit at least 10 universities annually if elected president and referenced his previous visits to over 500 secondary schools while serving as governor of Anambra State.
