‘Your Excellency You Owed Salaries, Pensions And Gratuities’ – Anambra Govt Tells Peter Obi

The Anambra State Government has disputed former governor Peter Obi’s claim that he left office without outstanding debts or unpaid financial obligations, saying state records show that liabilities incurred during his administration or inherited by it remained outstanding.

The latest exchange followed Obi’s rejection of claims by the state government that his administration left debts, including an ecological fund-related liability, as well as salary, pension and gratuity arrears.

Obi has maintained that he cleared more than ₦35 billion in historical arrears and left office without owing salaries, pensions, gratuities or contractors for duly completed and certified projects. He also challenged anyone with contrary evidence to produce it.

Reacting in a statement titled “Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies,” the Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation, Law Mefor, described Obi’s position on the state’s debt profile as false.

Mefor said eight external loans linked to projects implemented during or inherited by the Obi administration remained outstanding, with a combined balance of $92.35 million, which the government put at ₦127.37 billion as of June 30, 2026.

The loans, according to the statement, were obtained for projects covering malaria control, erosion management, healthcare, education, community development and agricultural value-chain development.

Among them was additional financing of $48.33 million for the Malaria Control Booster Project, with $37.34 million still outstanding, while $34.86 million remained on a $37.89 million loan for the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project.

The government said the current administration is servicing the outstanding loans.

Mefor said, “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.

“It is good for Anambra once we can show the impacts.”

The state government, however, said borrowing was not inherently wrong when used for viable projects and human-capital development, adding that the issue was whether public borrowing and expenditure could be properly accounted for.

The Soludo administration also rejected Obi’s claim that he handed over the state without outstanding salaries, pensions and gratuities.

Mefor said the current government had inherited and settled about N22bn in gratuity arrears owed to retired state and local government workers and teachers.

The commissioner also alleged that salary arrears involving workers of the former Anambra State Water Corporation remained unresolved until the current administration began addressing them.

“This administration has negotiated a settlement and already paid the first two instalments of the agreed three instalment payments,” the statement said.

Mefor further alleged that some primary school teachers had salary, pension and gratuity arrears dating back to the administration of former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju.

According to him, Obi’s administration had verified 16 months of salary arrears and agreed to settle them in instalments, but only five months were paid.

He added, “This administration has set up a committee headed by the Head of Service to finalise a new verification for us to pay.

“So, Your Excellency, you owed salaries, pensions and gratuities. Many of these people are still alive and can testify.”

“It is not good to speak loudly without facts or with fabricated figures.”

The most disputed issue in the latest exchange is the alleged ₦2.13 billion ecological fund which Obi said he left untouched for his successor.

Obi said the money was released shortly before the end of his tenure to tackle erosion in Oko/Umuchiana. He said he chose not to spend it because it was earmarked for a specific project and should be preserved for the incoming administration.

He identified a First Bank account that he said held more than ₦2.13 billion when he left office and argued that the money was separate from the more than ₦75 billion in savings he said his administration left behind.

The Anambra Government, however, said its records did not support the claim that the money was held in the account the former governor identified.

Mefor said the account was an internally generated revenue consolidated account, not an ecological fund account.

He said, “First, the account is an Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) Consolidated Revenue Account, and NOT an ecological fund account.

“Second, from 2011 when the account was opened until date, there has never been any such amount, whether as inflow or balance, in the account.”

The commissioner therefore challenged Obi to explain where the money was allegedly kept if it was not in the account he identified.

“Since HE Peter Obi raised the issue and admitted that his government received such an amount and it is evident that no such an amount ever entered into the account that he cited, it behoves HE Peter Obi to tell us where exactly his government kept the money or is the money missing?” Mefor asked.

Obi’s account of the ecological fund and the government’s response remain competing claims; independent verification would require the underlying banking and official financial records to establish the full trail of the funds.

The state government also challenged Obi’s assertion that his administration left more than ₦75 billion in savings.

Mefor dismissed the figure as part of what he described as “nebulous creative accounting”, while saying the claim had previously been disputed.