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Former Anambra State governor Peter Obi has broken his silence on the state’s debt controversy, dismissing claims that he left the state saddled with over $123 million in loans as a misreading of “public-sector accounting.”
The presidential candidate, who said he had gone quiet in recent days while mourning the death of his friend, Chief Okey Ezeibe, insisted he never personally borrowed for Anambra. He noted that the ex-DMO boss, Abraham Nwankwo, had once named him the only state governor in a decade who never approached the office for a loan.
Obi argued the disputed $123.77 million conflates three separate figures: total program approvals, actual drawdowns, and outstanding balances at handover from multilateral development facilities negotiated by the Nigerian government, not commercial loans he took out.
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He pointed to a gap in the numbers: DMO records put Anambra’s external debt at roughly $30 million when he left office in March 2014, and $45.15 million by December that year — far short of the $123.77 million now attributed to him.
He also revived claims about the funds he left behind, saying the more than $150 million dollar-denominated investment he handed over could have generated enough annual income to have “fully settled” any legitimate debt years ago, with hundreds of millions left over.
On the political undertone to the row, Obi moved to shut down speculation of a rift with Governor Charles Soludo,
“I have no disagreement with my dear elder brother, Governor Soludo, or with any governor in Nigeria,” adding that he has no ambition to return to the Anambra governorship “even if the Constitution is amended,” and called on governors nationwide to let all presidential candidates campaign freely in their states.
