Anambra Government Lists Loans Left by Obi, Disputes N2.13bn Ecological Fund Claim

The Anambra State Government has released details of loans it says remained outstanding after former Governor Peter Obi left office in 2014.

The government also challenged Obi’s claim that he left more than N2.13 billion in an ecological fund account for his successor.

Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation, Law Mefor, said the disputed First Bank account did not contain the amount claimed by Obi.

Mefor made the disclosure in a statement shared by the Anambra New Media X account on Wednesday.

The statement, titled “Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies,” responded to Obi’s recent defence of his financial record as governor.

Mefor said the state obtained a certified printout of First Bank account number 2018779464, which Obi identified as the account where he kept the ecological fund.

He said the records showed that the account was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account, not an ecological fund account.

According to him, the account has never recorded an inflow or balance of N2.13 billion since it opened in 2011.

Mefor therefore challenged the former governor to explain where the N2.13 billion he claimed to have left for his successor was kept.

Obi had said the money came from a release made about three months before he left office.

He said the funds were meant to tackle the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis and that he refused to spend them before leaving office.

Obi maintained that he left the money intact because the funds had a specific purpose and government remains a continuum.

He also said the account balance stood at more than N2.13 billion when he handed over power on March 17, 2014.

The former governor’s position followed claims by the Anambra Government that his administration left several financial obligations for subsequent governments.

Obi rejected those claims and said his administration had cleared historical gratuities and arrears worth more than N35 billion.

He also maintained that the state owed no salaries, pensions, gratuities or certified payments to contractors when he left office.

Mefor, however, said eight external loans remained outstanding after Obi’s departure.

He put the combined balance of the loans at N127.4 billion as of June 30, 2026, based on the official exchange rate.

The loans covered projects in areas including malaria control, agricultural development, healthcare, education, erosion management and community development.

They included the Malaria Control Booster Project, Third National Fadama Development Project and Health System Development Project II.

Others were the State Education Programme Investment Project, Community and Social Development Project, Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project and Value Chain Development Project.

The commissioner also disputed Obi’s claim that his administration left no arrears in salaries, gratuities or pensions.

Mefor said the Soludo administration had cleared about N22 billion in inherited gratuity arrears.

However, he said some legacy arrears from the Obi administration and earlier governments remained outstanding.

He identified retired teachers and former Water Corporation workers among those affected by the arrears.

According to Mefor, salary arrears owed Water Corporation workers continued through the Obi administration before the current government began settling them.

He said the government had paid the first two of three instalments owed the workers.

Mefor further alleged that the Obi administration verified and certified 16 months of salary arrears for primary school teachers but paid only five months.

The commissioner also questioned Obi’s claim that his administration left more than N75 billion in savings.

“We will not engage in nebulous creative accounting. If there were N75 billion in savings, as claimed, where are the records?” he asked.

Obi had challenged anyone disputing his account of the ecological fund to provide evidence.

“If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning,” he said.

The latest exchange has brought renewed attention to Anambra’s outstanding loans, inherited liabilities and the handling of public funds under successive administrations.