Anambra Debt Row: Soludo Govt Says Obi Left $123.77m Loan Balance

The Anambra State Government says former Governor Peter Obi left about $123.77 million in outstanding external loan obligations when he handed over power in March 2014.

The claim is at the centre of an escalating dispute between Obi and the administration of Governor Chukwuma Soludo over the financial legacy of the former governor’s eight-year tenure.

Obi has maintained that he left office without outstanding salaries, pensions, gratuities or debts owed to contractors for properly executed and certified projects.

But the Soludo administration says that position does not account for loans contracted during Obi’s tenure.

Speaking on TVC News’ Beyond the Headlines, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Soludo on Media, Ebuka Oyekelu, said records showed that Obi’s administration obtained eight loans between 2006 and 2014.

According to him, the loans amounted to about $823.7 million, with approximately $123 million still outstanding when Obi left office.

He said repayments by successive administrations have reduced the balance to about $92 million.

“As of the time Mr Peter Obi left office, that was in 2014, what was in the loan account taken by Mr Peter Obi stood at about $123 million,” Oyekelu said.

The Anambra government has separately put the outstanding naira value of the loans at about N127.37 billion as of June 30, 2026.

Oyekelu stressed that the Soludo administration was not arguing that borrowing for legitimate development projects amounted to financial mismanagement.

“There is nothing wrong with borrowing for a specific purpose, for public good,” he said.

He argued that the dispute was instead about Obi’s assertion that he left no outstanding liabilities when he left office.

The former governor has rejected the state’s claims, insisting that his administration cleared historical arrears and left Anambra without outstanding salary, pension, gratuity or certified contractor obligations.

The controversy therefore turns partly on the definition of “debt-free”, with Obi referring to unpaid obligations at handover while the current administration is pointing to longer-term loan liabilities that remained on the state’s books.

Oyekelu said the relevant records could be independently verified through the Debt Management Office and other government institutions involved in state borrowing and debt servicing.

The dispute comes more than 12 years after Obi left office and as he prepares to contest the 2027 presidential election on the platform of the Nigeria Democratic Congress.