The Presidency has reacted to the ongoing dispute between former Anambra State Governor and presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peter Obi, and the Anambra State Government over the state’s debts and financial liabilities.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in a post on X on Wednesday, said Obi had claimed to have left Anambra without debt and challenged him to follow through on his pledge to quit the presidential race if his claim was disproved.
Onanuga wrote: “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.”
He added: “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?” Onanuga asked.
The reaction followed a fresh response by the Anambra State Government to Obi’s Tuesday denial of claims that his administration left inherited debts, including an ecological fund liability, contractor obligations and unpaid salaries, gratuities and pensions.
Obi had said his administration cleared more than ₦35 billion in historical gratuities and arrears and left office without outstanding salary, pension or gratuity obligations.
On the disputed ecological fund, Obi said more than ₦2.13 billion was left untouched in a First Bank account for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis.
However, Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation, Law Mefor, disputed Obi’s account, saying the First Bank account identified by the former governor was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account and not an ecological fund account.
Mefor said the state obtained a certified printout of the account and stated: “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 consequently asked Obi to explain where the ₦2.13 billion he claimed to have left for his successor was kept.
Mefor also said eight external borrowings remained after Obi left office on March 17, 2014, adding that, as of June 30, 2026, the total balance of the loans stood at ₦127.4 billion at the official exchange rate.
He further disputed Obi’s claim that his administration left without owing salaries, gratuities or pensions, saying the Soludo administration had cleared about ₦22 billion in inherited gratuity arrears, while “legacy arrears remain from Obi and earlier administrations.”
On Water Corporation workers, Mefor said: “Salary arrears lingered through the Obi administration and were eventually settled under the Soludo administration, with the first two of three instalments already paid.”
He also said Obi’s administration verified and certified 16 months of salary arrears for primary school teachers but paid only five months.
Mefor said: “The Obi administration verified/certified 16 months of salary arrears for primary school teachers but paid only five months.”
The commissioner also rejected Obi’s claim that his administration left more than ₦75 billion in savings.
Mefor said: “We will not engage in nebulous creative accounting. If there were ₦75 billion in savings, as claimed, where are the records?”
Obi, in his earlier response, had maintained that his administration systematically liquidated historical gratuities and arrears dating back several years, amounting to more than ₦35 billion.
On the ecological fund, Obi said the money was released barely three months before the end of his tenure for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis and that, despite pressure to spend it, he refused because “government is a continuum” and the funds were tied to a specific project.
He further claimed that the money was left “100 per cent intact” in First Bank, with the account balance standing at more than ₦2.13 billion.
Obi had challenged anyone who could establish that his account of the state’s finances was incorrect, saying: “If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning.”
