Anambra Debt Controversy: Honour Your Word, Withdraw From 2027 Presidential Race Without Delay, Presidency Tells Peter Obi

As the Anambra State debt controversy continues, the presidency has asked NDC presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi to honour his word and back out of the 2027 presidential race without delay.

Team@orientactualmags.com learned that  President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga said this in an X.com post on Wednesday, noting that Mr Peter Obi had claimed to have competed his eight-year governorship in Anambra State without leaving a debt while daring anyone to prove otherwise.

He had also said he will quit the campaign trail if it is established that his administration left debt for the Willie Obiano and Charles Soludo administrations.

‘Peter Obi claimed he left Anambra with a clean slate of debt and even threatened to quit the presidential race if his claims were proven otherwise.

Now, the Anambra government has confronted him with facts and figures showing he owed Water Corporation workers, teachers, and pension and gratuities, and had also borrowed for frivolous things.

The ball is back in his court. Will he follow through on his threat by quitting the race?’ he asked.

Recall that Mr Peter Obi had asked Anambra State government to fault his assertion that his administration left no unpaid debts, salaries, pensions or contractor liabilities if they could.

The NDC  presidential candidate, who took to social media to respond to claims by the Anambra State Government that his administration left debts, including a N2 billion ecological loan, had dismissed the claims as false, saying his administration cleared historical gratuities and arrears worth more than N35 billion.

Obi also asserted that there were no outstanding salaries, gratuities or pensions when he left as governor adding that contractors had also been paid for projects that were taken to completion.

On the ecological fund, Mr Peter Obi said although the sum of N2 billion was released for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis about three months before the end of his tenure, he however refused to spend the money and left it for his successor because it was tied to a specific project.

That was not all, Mr Peter Obi also claimed that his administration left N75 billion in savings.

‘If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning’ Mr Peter Obi said.

Reacting in a statement titled ‘Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies’ the state government said it decided to respond because the NDC presidential candidate’s claims have to do with public funds.

‘We have no time to join issues. We will simply state the facts here for the records’ Dr. Law Mefor, who  is the Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, said.

According to the state government, eight external loans obtained during or inherited by the Obi administration and have remained outstanding are left with a combined balance of $92.35 million, equivalent to N127.37 billion, as of June 30, 2026.

The loans, according to the statement, were tied to projects including malaria control, Fadama development, healthcare, education, community development, erosion control and value-chain development.

The government said the original value of the eight loans was about $123.77 million.

It listed, among others, a $48.33 million additional financing for the Malaria Control Booster Project, of which $37.34 million remained outstanding as of June 30, 2026.

It also listed a $37.89 million Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project loan, with $34.86 million outstanding.

‘Evidently, HE Peter Obi borrowed for malaria, erosion control, education, healthcare, etc. 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’ he said.

The Soludo administration also disputed Obi’s assertion that he left office without owing salaries, pensions and gratuities.

Mefor claimed that the current administration had inherited and cleared about N22 billion in gratuity arrears owed to retired state and local government employees and teachers.

The government also alleged that salary arrears owed to staff of the defunct Anambra State Water Corporation remained unresolved throughout Obi’s tenure and were only being settled under the current administration.

‘This administration has negotiated a settlement and already paid the first two instalments of the agreed three instalment payments’ the statement said.

Some primary school teachers in the state, he added, have outstanding salary, pension and gratuity arrears dating back to the Chinwoke Mbadinuju administration while the Obi administration had verified 16 months of salary arrears and agreed to pay them in tranches but however paid only five months.

‘This administration has set up a committee headed by the Head of Service to finalize a new verification for us to pay.

So, Your Excellency, you owed salaries, pensions and gratuities. Many of these people are still alive and can testify.

It is not good to speak loudly without facts or with fabricated figures’ he said.

While Mr Peter Obi had claimed that he left more than N2.13 billion in a bank account belonging to the state as an ecological fund which is a First Bank account number 2018779464, Anambra State Government said it had obtained a certified statement of the bank account and found no evidence that the money was ever deposited into it.

 ‘First, the bank account is an Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) Consolidated Revenue Account, and NOT an ecological fund account.

Second, from 2011 when the account was opened until date, there has never been any such amount—whether as inflow or balance—in the account’ the commissioner said.

Mr Peter Obi served as governor of Anambra State from March 17, 2006, to March 17, 2014.

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