Former Anambra State Governor and presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has denied claims by the Anambra State Government that his administration left behind inherited debts, including a ₦2 billion ecological loan, unpaid salaries, gratuities, pensions and contractor liabilities.
Obi, in a statement on Tuesday, described the allegations as “completely false,” insisting that his administration cleared outstanding obligations inherited from previous governments before handing over power.
According to him, his administration systematically liquidated historical gratuities and arrears accumulated over several years, with payments exceeding ₦35 billion.
He said: “At the point of handover, the state owed nothing in salaries, gratuities, or pensions, nor did we owe anything to any contractor for projects duly executed and certified.”
Obi also addressed the ₦2 billion ecological fund at the centre of the controversy, saying the money was released about three months before the end of his tenure for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis.
He said he deliberately refused to spend the allocation despite pressure to do so, arguing that the money should be preserved for his successor because government was a continuum and the funds were earmarked for a specific project.
“The money was therefore left 100 per cent intact in First Bank, in Account No. 2018779464, with a balance of over ₦2.13 billion,” Obi stated.
The former governor further clarified that funds tied to specific projects or reserved for particular purposes were not included in the more than ₦75 billion in savings he said his administration left behind.
Obi challenged anyone disputing his account to provide evidence to the contrary.
“If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning,” he said.
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The statement comes amid an ongoing dispute over the financial position allegedly inherited by successive administrations in Anambra State, with Obi seeking to draw a distinction between project-specific funds and the broader savings and financial resources he said were available at the end of his tenure.
However the statement government, in a statement by Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor, insisted that Obi left a total of $127.3 billion external debt.
Mefor claimed that the state government has been spending millions of naira every month to service the debts.
The Commissioner also countered Obi’s claim that he left ₦2.13 billion Ecological Fund in a First Bank account, alleging that an audit carried out showed that no such amount of money entered the account.
