The Anambra State Government has released what it described as the public debt records incurred during the administration of former Governor Peter Obi, alleging that he left behind outstanding domestic and external debts, as well as unpaid pensions and gratuities.
The state government made the disclosure in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor, and titled, “Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies.”
The statement was issued in response to a recent post by Obi, the former governor and presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), in which he addressed what he described as “Phantom Debts and Ecological Loan Fallacy.”
The government said it decided to respond because the state had continued to spend public funds servicing debts it attributed to the former governor’s administration.
The statement read in part: “Our attention has been drawn to a viral post by a former Governor of Anambra, HE Mr. Peter Obi, CON, on what he described as Phantom Debts and Ecological Loan Fallacy, which presumably was in response to some statements in a podcast by the Anambra State Commissioner for Finance.
“We understand that this is a campaign season and candidates often go to extremes to impress. If not that the said post was in his personal handle, we would not have believed that he could have made such wild, and verifiably false claims.
“As a government, we are focused 100% on delivering dividends of democracy to millions of Ndi Anambra. However, when a former governor of the state makes some outlandish claims about the state of public debt he left behind and especially when the present government has been spending billions of Naira servicing the same debt, a responsible government owes the public a response in the interest of transparency and accountability.”
The state government said Obi’s administration spent about $4.05 billion over his eight years in office and contracted $123.77 million in external debt.
According to the statement, the figures were derived from audited and published expenditure records converted using the average official exchange rates during Obi’s tenure.
It said the $4.05 billion would amount to about ₦5.4 trillion at the current official exchange rate.
The government, however, acknowledged that borrowing was not necessarily negative if the funds were used for productive purposes.
“Let’s be clear: hardly any government in the world has zero debt stock. The issue is not whether or not borrowing is good: no business or government can scale significantly without some debt,” the statement said.
The government said eight external loans contracted during Obi’s administration remained outstanding when he left office on March 17, 2014.
According to the statement, the outstanding balance of the loans stood at ₦127.4 billion as of June 30, 2026, based on the official exchange rate.
It said the figure was contained in the latest report of the Debt Management Office (DMO) on Anambra State’s debt status as of June 2026.
The government said the loans were obtained for projects including malaria control, erosion management, education and healthcare.
“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,” it said.
The state government also alleged that Obi left office with significant infrastructure and social-service challenges, including inadequate water schemes, insecurity, poverty, poor public schools and healthcare facilities.
It further claimed that 78 of the state’s 179 communities, representing 44 per cent, did not have public primary schools at the time, adding that the current administration was working to address the gap.
The government also claimed that only about 27 per cent of Anambra residents patronised public health institutions because of what it described as poor quality and inadequate functionality.
It said borrowing for “bankable projects and human capital development” could be justified where such borrowing delivered measurable benefits to residents.
The statement also accused Obi’s administration of leaving behind unpaid salaries, gratuities and pensions owed to retired teachers and former staff of the Water Corporation.
The government described Obi’s claim that he had cleared all inherited arrears of pensions, salaries and gratuities as “patently false.”
However, it said it would not delve into the dispute between Obi and his predecessors over which administration was responsible for settling specific arrears.
