The controversy over the financial records left behind by former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi has taken a new turn, with the Presidency urging him to substantiate his claims as competing accounts of the state’s finances continue to emerge.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, on Wednesday challenged Obi to honour his pledge to stop campaigning for the 2027 presidency if his claim that he left Anambra without outstanding liabilities is disproved.
The latest development followed a fresh response from the Anambra State Government, which disputed Obi’s account of the state’s financial position at the end of his administration.
The state government, through Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation, Law Mefor, said records available to it showed outstanding liabilities connected to previous administrations. It also said eight external loans linked to projects under or associated with the Obi administration remained outstanding as of June 30, 2026.
One of the major points of disagreement is the alleged ₦2.13 billion ecological fund.
Obi has maintained that the money was released for erosion control and that he deliberately left it untouched for the incoming administration. He identified a First Bank account which he said contained more than ₦2.13 billion at the time he handed over power.
The Anambra Government, however, says the account identified by Obi was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account rather than an ecological fund account. Mefor said a certified printout obtained by the government did not show the amount claimed by the former governor in the account’s records.
Obi has also rejected allegations that his administration left unpaid salaries, pensions, gratuities and contractor liabilities, maintaining that his government cleared more than ₦35 billion in historical arrears before leaving office.
The Anambra Government has presented a different account, saying the current administration inherited and settled significant arrears, including gratuity obligations, while continuing to service loans associated with previous administrations.
With both sides presenting sharply different versions of events, the dispute is increasingly centred on official financial records, bank statements, debt documents and handover records that could establish what liabilities existed and what funds were available when Obi left office in 2014.
The Presidency’s intervention has now added a national political dimension to what began as a dispute over Anambra’s financial history, as the competing claims continue to attract attention ahead of the 2027 general elections.
