The Presidency has put former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi’s 2027 presidential bid at the centre of the controversy over the finances he left behind when he handed over power in 2014.
It challenged him to honour his pledge to stop campaigning if his claims of leaving the state debt-free are disproved.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, said on Wednesday that Obi had set the terms himself by offering to end his campaign if anyone could establish that his administration left outstanding liabilities.
“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,” Onanuga said in a post on X.
He said the Anambra State Government had now responded with financial records contradicting the former governor’s account.
“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,” Onanuga said.
“The ball is back in his court. Will he follow through on his threat by quitting the race?” he asked.
The exchange followed Obi’s latest defence of his eight-year administration in Anambra.
He rejected allegations that he left behind unpaid salaries, pensions, gratuities and contractor obligations.
The former governor said his administration had paid more than N35 billion in historical gratuities and arrears and insisted that there were no outstanding salary, pension or gratuity obligations when he left office.
Obi also challenged anyone with contrary evidence to produce it.
He declared: “If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning.”
The controversy has its roots in the transition from Obi to Willie Obiano in March 2014.
Competing accounts had emerged over the financial and contractual obligations inherited by the new administration.
The Obiano government subsequently said it inherited about N185 billion in project-related liabilities from Obi’s administration.
Obi’s camp disputed the claim
It maintained that he left substantial cash and investments and did not hand over a debt-ridden state.
Debt Management Office records from December 31, 2013, shortly before Obi left office, showed Anambra’s external debt at about $30.32 million and domestic debt at approximately N3.03 billion.
The issue later acquired another dimension when Charles Soludo succeeded Obiano in 2022.
Soludo said his administration inherited more than N100 billion in debt, alongside a much smaller cash position.
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