Obi challenges Anambra debt figures, says $150m was left behind

Former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has rejected claims that he left the state with $123 million in debt, saying he handed over a financially strong government with more than $150 million in funds. Obi made the clarification during an exclusive interview with Arise News on Thursday while responding to claims attributed to the incumbent governor, Chukwuma Soludo. He said the presentation of Anambra’s debt position at the time he left office in 2014 amounted to “very wrong public accounting”. “Assuming—let me even assume that Anambra State was right, even though it’s false, I did not leave $123 million—let me assume the worst-case scenario: that there was $123. 7 million owed as of the time I left. I left over $150 million that was earning about $10 million annually.

If they had just kept that money I left and used the income to pay the loan, they would have finished paying it now, with the $150 million capital still remaining and still giving Anambra State $10 million annually. “How it is now bundled that as of the time I left office, I left $123-something million is very wrong public accounting,” he said. Obi maintained that he neither borrowed money from financial institutions nor issued bonds for Anambra State throughout his eight-year tenure as governor. “Let me categorically state again: I, Mr. Peter Obi, did not approach any financial institution to borrow money or issue bonds on behalf of Anambra State in the eight years that I was in government. “On the day I left office, the government of Anambra State, which I served, was not owing any salary, gratuity, or pension to those scheduled to be paid by the state government. We were not owing any contractor or supplier who had executed their…