The Presidency has waded into the escalating dispute between former Anambra State Governor and presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peter Obi, and the state government over alleged debts and financial liabilities incurred during his administration.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, challenged Obi on Wednesday to honour his pledge to withdraw from the presidential race if his claims about Anambra’s finances were proven wrong.
Onanuga, in a post on X, recalled that Obi had maintained that he left Anambra State without debt and had offered to stop campaigning if anyone could establish otherwise.
“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 wrote.
He said the Anambra State Government had since presented what it described as facts and figures contradicting Obi’s account, including allegations of unpaid obligations to Water Corporation workers, teachers, pensioners and contractors.
“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 added.
The Presidency’s intervention followed a fresh exchange between Obi and the Anambra State Government over the financial position of the state when he left office.
Obi had, in a statement on Tuesday, rejected claims that his administration left behind inherited debts, including liabilities involving a ₦2bn ecological fund, contractors, salaries, gratuities and pensions.
The former governor said his administration had cleared more than ₦35bn in historical gratuities and arrears and left office without outstanding obligations relating to salaries, pensions or gratuities.
He also disputed the state government’s account of the ecological fund, saying more than ₦2.13bn had been left untouched in a First Bank account for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis.
But Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor, challenged Obi’s claim in a statement issued on Wednesday.
Mefor said the account cited by the former governor was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account and not an ecological fund account.
According to him, the state government obtained a certified printout of the account and found no record supporting Obi’s claim.
“From 2011 when the account was opened until date, there has never been any such amount—whether as inflow or balance—in the account,” Mefor said.
Obi had earlier challenged anyone disputing his account of Anambra’s finances to provide evidence to the contrary.
“If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning,” he said.
The dispute has now shifted from competing claims over Anambra’s financial records to whether Obi will act on the pledge he made concerning his presidential campaign..
