₦86 Billion Left Behind, or $92 Million Still Owed? Both Sets of Books Are Now Public

Peter Obi’s whole pitch is a ledger.

He is the governor who saved, the candidate who counts every naira, and who says he handed his successor a state that owed nothing. So when Anambra’s finance commissioner said on a podcast that the state is still repaying loans from Mr Obi’s time, he did not shrug. He raised the stakes.

According to Premium Times, he told Governor Charles Soludo’s administration to prove he left debt, and said that if it did he would stop campaigning for the presidency.

The state replied with documents. Then his side did too.

This article sets the two sets of papers next to each other. It relies on five Premium Times reports published between 14 and 19 September, including its account of the handover letter. We have not independently examined Anambra’s accounts or the Debt Management Office’s files.

Six days, four moves

1. Monday 14 September

   “Starting from the time of Peter Obi”

   Finance commissioner Izuchukwu Okafor says the Soludo government has borrowed nothing from commercial banks but is still servicing loans taken by earlier governors, Mr Obi and Willie Obiano among them, through monthly deductions from Anambra’s federal allocation. He also claims ₦2.1 billion in ecological funds was not repaid.

   Alleged
2. Tuesday 15 September

   The pledge

   Mr Obi calls the claim “completely false.” He says he owed no salary, pension, gratuity or certified contractor on the day he left, cleared over ₦35 billion in old arrears, saved more than ₦75 billion, and left the ecological money intact in a named First Bank account. Prove otherwise, he says, and he ends his campaign.

   Denied
3. Wednesday 16 September

   The state publishes loan records

   Information commissioner Law Mefor releases a summary he says is drawn from the Debt Management Office: eight external loans taken between 2007 and 2013, $123.7 million in all, with $92.35 million still outstanding, which the state puts at ₦127.37 billion as of 30 June 2026. He also disputes the arrears claim, naming unpaid Water Corporation staff and primary-school teachers.

   Disputed
4. Thursday 17 September

   The former SSG publishes the handover letter

   Oseloka Obaze, Secretary to the State Government under Mr Obi, posts the 17 March 2014 handover letter on X. He says he watched Mr Obiano receive it, with certified bank statements attached, and sign for it.

   Documented

Book one: what the handover letter says

The letter is titled “2014 Anambra State Handover Report” and is addressed by Mr Obi to the incoming governor. Premium Times notes it has been in public circulation since he left office. It gives the state’s position at close of business on Friday 14 March 2014.

• Local investments₦27 billion
• Foreign-currency investments₦25.6 billion, which the letter puts at about $156 million
• Balances of the state and its ministries and agencies₦28.27 billion
• Refund from the federal government₦10 billion
• The letter’s total₦91.67 billion, less ₦5 billion set aside for March salaries, pensions, gratuities and certified work, leaving ₦86.67 billion

Premium Times adds two cautions of its own. A signature acknowledging receipt of a letter is not confirmation that the money was there. And the books were never jointly verified by the outgoing and incoming governments.

The successor’s own words cut both ways. In a 2017 governorship debate, Mr Obiano said he met ₦9 billion in cash and ₦25.6 billion in securities, and that Mr Obi had issued cheques worth over ₦15 billion before leaving. The ₦25.6 billion matches the letter to the decimal. The rest does not. Disputed

Book two: what the loan records say

The state’s summary lists eight external loans attached to named programmes, among them the Malaria Control Booster Project, the Third Fadama Development Project, the Health System Development Project II, the State Education Programme Investment Project and the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project.

Those are donor-financed programmes that many Nigerian states signed up to, and the finance commissioner himself described the deductions as covering “World Bank loans and other loans.” Such credits run for decades, which is how a loan signed in Mr Obi’s time can still be on the books in 2026. Mr Mefor was careful on this point: he said the issue is not whether borrowing is good, and that hardly any government has zero debt.

One piece of arithmetic is worth doing. The handover letter values $156 million at ₦25.6 billion, about ₦164 to the dollar. At that rate the $92.35 million still outstanding was worth about ₦15 billion on the day Mr Obi left. The state’s ₦127 billion is the same dollars at today’s exchange rate.

So was there debt?

Read Mr Obi’s quoted words closely and they are specific: no salaries, no pensions, no gratuities, no certified contractors. None of that is touched by a concessional loan for erosion control. On that narrow claim the state has answered with different examples, the Water Corporation staff and the teachers’ arrears, and those remain one side’s assertion.

But he went further. Premium Times reports that he also said he did not incur any debt as governor, and he staked his campaign on the word “debt.” If the Debt Management Office summary is accurate, eight external loans were signed on his watch and most of the principal is still outstanding. That is debt, however sensible the projects and however much cash sat beside it. Unresolved

A state can have ₦86 billion in the bank and $123 million on loan at the same time. Most states carry both.

Which leaves both men with something to explain. Mr Obi has not, in the reporting we reviewed, addressed the eight loans by name. And the state, which says it is only “stating the facts,” has published a summary rather than the underlying Debt Management Office schedule, and led with a naira figure that is mostly the exchange rate.

What the record does not show

• Missing moneyNobody in this dispute has alleged that Mr Obi took public funds. The argument is about what he left and what he borrowed.
• Verified balancesThe 2014 figures were never jointly verified. The letter is evidence of what he reported, not an audit.
• The loan scheduleThe state has released a summary. The Debt Management Office’s own per-loan schedule for Anambra has not been published in the reporting we reviewed.
• The arrearsThe Water Corporation and teachers’ claims come from the state alone. Mr Obi says all arrears due were cleared.
• The ecological fundHe has named the bank and the account. No statement from the bank or from Mr Obiano’s side on that balance appears in the reporting.
• A reply on the loansWe have found no on-record response from Mr Obi to the eight loans specifically. It will be added here when there is one.

This article reports on, and credits, journalism by Premium Times. Nobody quoted here has accused Peter Obi of taking public money, and nothing in this article suggests that he did. Borrowing for development projects is lawful and routine. The loan figures are the Anambra State Government’s summary, which it attributes to the Debt Management Office; the handover figures are Mr Obi’s own 2014 report. The Nigeria Files has verified neither against source ledgers. The exchange-rate comparison is our arithmetic from figures in the handover letter. Statuses are editorial labels, not findings. Corrections and documented responses will be published.