Nearly 13 years after Peter Obi handed over as Governor of Anambra State, the administration of Governor Chukwuma Soludo has reopened the debate over the financial position of the state at the end of Obi’s tenure, insisting that the former governor did not leave Anambra without debt obligations.
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In its latest response to Obi, the state government said eight external loan facilities obtained during or inherited into his administration had an original combined value of about $123.77 million, with $92.35 million, which it valued at about ₦127.37 billion, still outstanding as of June 30, 2026.
The government said the facilities were connected to projects covering malaria control, Fadama development, healthcare, education, community development, erosion control and agricultural value-chain development. Anambra officials had earlier said deductions were still being made from the state’s monthly Federation Account allocation to service loans associated with previous administrations, including those of Obi and Willie Obiano.
“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,” the latest state government statement said.
There is, however, an important distinction in the government’s own description of the eight facilities: it said they were “obtained during or inherited into” Obi’s administration. The $92.35 million outstanding in 2026 therefore cannot automatically be described as the amount of debt personally contracted by Obi or the precise debt balance he handed over in March 2014 without a loan-by-loan breakdown showing when each facility was contracted and drawn.
Official Debt Management Office records provide a closer snapshot of Anambra’s debt position shortly before Obi left office. As of December 31, 2013, Anambra State had $30.32 million in external debt. DMO records also place the state’s domestic debt around the end of 2013 at approximately ₦3.03 billion.
Those figures establish that formal public debt obligations existed around the end of Obi’s tenure, although they do not, on their own, establish which administration originally contracted each external facility.
Obi, for his part, has consistently maintained that when he handed over to Willie Obiano on March 17, 2014, his administration did not owe salaries, pensions, gratuities or contractors whose completed and certified works were due for payment. He recently repeated that position while responding to the Soludo administration’s claim that Anambra was still servicing loans associated with previous governments.
At the centre of Obi’s own account of the handover is his claim that his administration left more than ₦75 billion in savings and investments for Anambra.
At his end-of-tenure presentation in March 2014, Obi said the figure included expected bank balances of about ₦11.5 billion, a ₦10 billion Federal Government-approved refund, foreign-currency investments of approximately $155 million, then valued by him at about ₦26 billion, as well as investments in several state-backed ventures. Contemporary reports recorded his overall figure as ₦75 billion.
Obi subsequently stressed that he never claimed the entire ₦75 billion was cash sitting in bank accounts. He said some of it consisted of investments, including foreign-currency bonds and stakes in companies and projects. In a later interview, he described the dollar-denominated savings as approximately $156 million.
The foreign-currency component is particularly significant when the value of the naira at the time is considered. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, the average exchange rate in the first quarter of 2014 was approximately ₦157.30/$ at the official rDAS market, ₦162.78/$ at the interbank market and ₦170.84/$ at the Bureau de Change market.
Using the CBN’s official first-quarter 2014 rate of ₦157.30 to $1, the entire ₦75 billion claimed by Obi would have represented roughly $476.8 million at the time. Using the interbank rate, it would have been about $460.7 million, while at the BDC rate it would have been about $439 million.
Those calculations are only currency equivalents, however. They should not be interpreted as meaning Obi left an additional $476.8 million alongside the $155 million. The $155 million was already one component of the assets included in his ₦75 billion claim.
Interestingly, Obi’s own contemporaneous valuation of the $155 million foreign investment at about ₦26 billion implies an exchange rate of roughly ₦167.74/$, which fell between the CBN’s interbank and BDC averages around that period.
The succeeding Obiano administration later disputed Obi’s description of the ₦75 billion handover. In 2015, it argued that the amount immediately available was substantially lower and that some of the assets described by Obi were investments rather than unrestricted cash. Obi’s camp rejected that account and maintained that more than ₦75 billion in cash balances and investments had been left behind.
The Soludo administration has also challenged Obi’s recent assertion that he left approximately ₦2.13 billion in a First Bank account earmarked for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion project. Obi said the money had deliberately been left untouched because it was dedicated to the project and because “government is a continuum.”
The state government, however, said its examination of the account identified by Obi showed that it was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account rather than an ecological fund account, and claimed it found no record of the stated ₦2.13 billion entering or standing as a balance in the account.
The administration has similarly disputed Obi’s position on salary, pension and gratuity liabilities, saying it had dealt with billions of naira in arrears inherited from earlier administrations. Obi maintains that he cleared more than ₦35 billion in inherited arrears during his tenure and did not leave behind unpaid salaries, pensions, gratuities or duly processed contractor obligations.
The competing accounts therefore involve two different questions: what assets Obi left for Anambra in March 2014, and what debt obligations were still on the state’s books when he departed. Contemporary reports support the fact that Obi publicly declared more than ₦75 billion in savings and investments, including about $155 million in foreign-currency investments, while DMO records also show that Anambra had formal external and domestic debt around the end of 2013.
What The Figures Looked Like At The 2014 Exchange Rate
| Item | Amount Reported/Claimed | Approx. USD Equivalent Using CBN Q1 2014 Official Rate of ₦157.30/$ | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obi’s total claimed savings/investments | ₦75bn | $476.8m | Included cash balances, refunds, foreign-currency investments and other investments |
| Foreign-currency investment within the ₦75bn | $155m | Obi valued it at about ₦26bn | Already part of the ₦75bn, not additional to it |
| ₦26bn value assigned to $155m | ₦26bn | $165.3m at official rate | Obi’s own ₦26bn/$155m valuation implies about ₦167.74/$ |
| Expected bank balances | ₦11.5bn | $73.1m | Part of Obi’s handover breakdown |
| Federal Government-approved refund | ₦10bn | $63.6m | Part of the reported handover assets |
| Anambra domestic debt as of Dec. 31, 2013 | about ₦3.03bn | about $19.3m | DMO historical debt snapshot |
| Anambra external debt as of Dec. 31, 2013 | $30.32m | $30.32m | DMO historical debt snapshot |
| Approx. combined Dec. 2013 formal debt, after converting domestic debt | — | about $49.6m | Rough comparison using the ₦157.30/$ rate; not an exact March 2014 handover balance |
| Latest amount state govt says remained on eight external facilities as of June 30, 2026 | $92.35m / ₦127.37bn | $92.35m | State says facilities were “obtained during or inherited into” Obi’s tenure |
The CBN’s first-quarter 2014 figures show why the exchange-rate basis matters: ₦157.30/$ was the average official rDAS rate, ₦162.78/$ the interbank average and ₦170.84/$ the BDC average. At those three rates, ₦75 billion was worth approximately $476.8 million, $460.7 million and $439 million, respectively.
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