Anambra govt tackles Obi over N127.37bn inherited debt, N2.13bn ecological fund claim
By Dally Iyamu
The Anambra State Government has responded to former Governor Peter Obi’s claims concerning the state’s debt profile, accusing the former governor of making what it described as “verifiably false” assertions about debts incurred during his administration.
The state government, in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor, on Wednesday, said Obi left behind eight external loans with an outstanding balance of N127.37bn as of June 30, 2026.
Mefor said the clarification became necessary following a recent social media post by Obi on what he described as “phantom debts and ecological loan fallacy,” which the commissioner said appeared to have followed comments by the state Commissioner for Finance in a podcast.
According to him, although the state government remained focused on governance and delivering services to residents, it had a responsibility to clarify the state’s debt position in the interest of transparency and accountability.
The statement read in part: “As a government, we are focused 100 per cent on delivering dividends of democracy to millions of Ndi Anambra.
However, when a former governor of the state makes some outlandish claims about the state of public debt he left behind and especially when the present government has been spending billions of Naira servicing the same debt, a responsible government owes the public a response in the interest of transparency and accountability.”
The state government alleged that Obi’s administration spent about $4.05bn during his eight years in office, which it said would amount to approximately N5.4tn at the current exchange rate.
It said the figure was arrived at by converting the audited and published expenditures of the administration using the average official exchange rates applicable during Obi’s tenure.
The government, however, acknowledged that borrowing was not inherently negative when funds were deployed to viable development projects.
It said, “Hardly any government in the world has zero debt stock. The issue is not whether or not borrowing is good: no business or government can scale significantly without some debt.”
The government nevertheless criticised what it described as the state of infrastructure and public services it claimed Obi left behind, including water schemes, public schools, hospitals and other infrastructure.
It claimed that 78 of the 179 communities in the state did not have public primary schools, while alleging that only about 27 per cent of Anambra residents patronised public health institutions because of perceived poor quality and inadequate functionality.
The statement also referred to comments allegedly made by Obi at a recent conference of the Nigerian Bar Association concerning the state’s public health system.
The government said it would not have objected to borrowing if the funds had been deployed to improve public schools, hospitals, water supply, infrastructure, security and human capital development.
According to the statement, eight external loans contracted during Obi’s administration remained outstanding when he left office on March 17, 2014.
The government, citing the latest report of the Debt Management Office, said the outstanding balance stood at $92.35m, equivalent to N127.37bn as of June 30, 2026.
The loans listed by the government include the Malaria Control Booster Project; Third National Fadama Development Project; Health System Development Project II; State Education Programme Investment Project; Community and Social Development Project; Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project; and Value Chain Development Project.
The statement put the original value of the eight loans at $123.77m.
The largest outstanding balances, according to figures released by the state government, were the State Education Programme Investment Project, with $37.34m outstanding, and the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, with $34.86m outstanding.
The government said the two loans represented approximately N51.50bn and N48.08bn, respectively, at the June 30, 2026 exchange rate.
It added that the state had continued to service the inherited obligations.
Mefor said, “So far, this government pays hundreds of millions of Naira every month to service these debts and we are not complaining. It is good for Anambra once we can show the impacts.”
The state government also disputed Obi’s reported claim that his administration cleared all inherited salary, pension and gratuity arrears.
Mefor said the present administration had paid about N22bn in inherited gratuity arrears owed to retired state and local government employees and teachers.
He further alleged that some outstanding liabilities dating back to previous administrations remained unresolved after Obi left office.
According to the statement, one of the outstanding obligations involved salary arrears owed to workers of the defunct Water Corporation.
The government said the matter had resulted in court proceedings, adding that the current administration had negotiated a settlement and paid the first two instalments under an agreed three-instalment arrangement.
It also alleged that salary, pension and gratuity arrears owed to primary school teachers under the local government system remained outstanding.
The statement claimed that Obi’s administration had verified and certified 16 months of salary arrears but paid only five months.
It added that the current administration had constituted a committee headed by the Head of Service to conduct a fresh verification of the outstanding liabilities.
The Anambra Government also challenged Obi’s claim that he left more than N2.13bn in an account with First Bank’s UNIZIK Branch, Awka, when he left office in March 2014.
According to Mefor, the Commissioner for Finance did not refer to any N2bn ecological fund loan during the podcast that preceded Obi’s response.
The commissioner said the state government had obtained a certified statement of the account allegedly referenced by Obi and claimed that it was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account, rather than an ecological fund account.
He further claimed that the account, which he said was opened in 2011, contained no record of an inflow or balance corresponding to N2.13bn.
The statement said, “Since HE Peter Obi raised the issue and admitted that his government received such an amount and it is evident that no such an amount ever entered into the account that he cited, it behoves on HE Peter Obi to tell us where exactly his government kept the money or is the money missing?”
The government also questioned the former governor’s claim concerning the state’s alleged N75bn savings or investment, saying the figure had been disputed by the previous administration.
Mefor said the state government did not intend to be drawn into what he described as “nebulous creative accounting” over the figure.
