By Daniel Oluwatobiloba Popoola
Anambra State Government has released a detailed record of debts and financial obligations linked to previous administrations, including that of former Governor Peter Obi, amid controversy over claims that the state is still servicing loans incurred under his tenure.
The government disclosed this in a press statement titled, “Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies,” issued on Tuesday, 16 September, 2026, and signed by the Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor.
The statement, described as a response to a viral post by Obi on what he termed “Phantom Debts and Ecological Loan Fallacy,” said the reaction became necessary following claims he made regarding statements credited to the state’s Commissioner for Finance in a recent podcast.
According to the statement, Obi spent about $4.05 billion, equivalent to N5.4 trillion at the current exchange rate, during his eight years in office, and also contracted $123.77 million in external debt across eight separate borrowings, which the present administration is still servicing.
The loans, it said, covered the Malaria Control Booster Project, the Third National Fadama Development Project, the Health System Development Project II, the State Education Programme Investment Project, the Community and Social Development Project, the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project and the Value Chain Development Project, all signed between 2007 and 2013.
Citing figures from the Debt Management Office, DMO, the statement said the outstanding balance on the loans stood at N127.37 billion, about $92.35 million, as of June 30, 2026.
On unpaid entitlements, the government said Obi owed verified salaries, gratuities and pensions to retired teachers and staff of the defunct Water Corporation, describing as “patently false” his claim to have cleared all inherited arrears during his tenure.
It said the present administration had cleared about N22 billion in inherited gratuity arrears owed to retired state and local government employees and teachers, adding that some legacy arrears from his tenure remained unresolved.
The government further alleged that Obi lied about an ecological fund account or deposit with the First Bank of Nigeria, UNIZIK Branch, Awka, insisting that no such claim was made by the Commissioner for Finance in the referenced podcast.
A certified printout of the account, obtained from inception to date, showed it to be an Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, Consolidated Revenue Account, and not an ecological fund account, with no such amount, whether as inflow or balance, ever reflected since the account was opened in 2011.
“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 statement said.
The government maintained that it did not wish to be drawn into what it described as “nebulous creative accounting” surrounding a claimed N75 billion in savings or investment, which the previous administration had vigorously disputed.
The statement noted that Anambra, under Obi’s successors, was left without functioning urban or rural water schemes, with 78 of 179 communities, representing 44 per cent, still lacking public primary schools, and only about 27 per cent of residents patronising public health institutions due to poor quality and non-functionality of facilities.
