Picture: L-R: Mr Peter Obi and Prof Charles Soludo
The Nijasun News Analysis
The controversy over the financial records of former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi has taken a fresh turn following the claim by the state government that loans obtained during his administration are still being repaid from the state’s monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, revenue.
The Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation, Law Mefor, made the claim on Friday while speaking on Arise Television’s The Morning Show, saying the loans were among eight external facilities guaranteed by the Federal Government.
Mefor said the fact that the Federal Government guaranteed the facilities did not make them grants, explaining that they remained loans that had to be repaid.
He said Anambra had the option of participating in the lending programmes but that the Obi administration chose to access the facilities.
According to the commissioner, the eight external facilities attributed to the Obi administration had an original value of about $123 million.
The state government has also relied on records it attributed to the Debt Management Office, DMO, to put the outstanding balance of the facilities at about N127.4 billion as of June 30, 2026.
The figure, however, represents the reported current naira value of the outstanding balance and should not be interpreted to mean that Obi borrowed N127.4 billion during his tenure.
The facilities were reportedly obtained for various development programmes, including projects in areas such as erosion and watershed management, healthcare, education and agriculture.
The central issue in the dispute is therefore not simply whether the Obi administration accessed loan facilities. It is whether the facilities remained outstanding when he left office in March 2014 and whether that contradicts his assertion that he left no financial liabilities for his successor.
Obi has denied leaving Anambra with outstanding debts, salaries, pensions, gratuities or other financial obligations. He has also challenged the state government to produce evidence contradicting his position.
The latest statement by Mefor seeks to provide that evidence by pointing to the reported DMO records and the outstanding balances of the eight facilities.
However, the claim that the loans are currently being deducted directly from Anambra’s FAAC allocation is a separate issue that requires confirmation from relevant debt-service and federal allocation records.
The debt controversy has consequently moved beyond political claims and counterclaims to questions that can be settled by official financial documents.
The key facts requiring verification are the dates each facility was contracted, the original amount, the amount disbursed, the amount repaid before 2014, the balance inherited by successive administrations, the repayments made since then and the current debt-service arrangements.
Until those figures are independently matched with the relevant DMO, federal and state financial records, the competing claims by the Anambra Government and Obi will continue to generate political controversy.
What is now clear from the latest exchange is that the disagreement is no longer merely about whether borrowing took place. It is about the size of the outstanding obligations, who inherited them, how they have been serviced and what exactly Obi meant when he said he left Anambra without debt.
Tags: Obi, Soludo, DMO, borrowing, debts
