![\"\"](\"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG-20260718-WA0009-240x300.jpg\")
The Soludo administration says that is the naira value, at the official exchange rate, of the outstanding balance as of June 30, 2026, on eight external loan facilities associated with projects contracted during Peter Obi\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
Obi says he left Anambra without unpaid salaries, pensions, gratuities or liabilities to contractors whose work had been executed and certified. He has challenged the government to produce evidence and said he would abandon his presidential campaign if anybody can establish that he left an unpaid obligation of the sort he described.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Anambra government responded with a detailed statement from Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation Law Mefor, listing eight external facilities and arguing that Obi’s \u201cdebt-free\u201d narrative is false.<\/p>\n
But a closer examination of the available records reveals an important distinction that has been largely lost in the political exchange: A loan being signed during an administration is not necessarily the same thing as the full amount being disbursed during that administration. And the balance of a loan in 2026 is not the same thing as the debt balance inherited in March 2014.<\/p>\n
The distinction could determine whether the present controversy is a straightforward exposure of a misleading political claim or an incomplete presentation of an otherwise legitimate debt history.<\/p>\n
The first thing the records establish: Anambra was not literally debt-free<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the easiest part of the dispute to verify.<\/p>\n The Debt Management Office’s historical records show that as of\u00a0December 31, 2013, less than three months before Obi handed over power on March 17, 2014, Anambra had: The DMO’s own subsequent publication shows Anambra’s external debt at\u00a0US$41.46 million as of June 30, 2014, and\u00a0US$45.15 million by December 31, 2014.<\/p>\n That creates a fundamental problem for any blanket interpretation of \u201cI left the state debt-free.\u201d<\/p>\n If \u201cdebt-free\u201d means that Anambra had no formal public debt obligations whatsoever, the available DMO evidence does not support that proposition.<\/p>\n A 2025 Guardian fact-check reached essentially the same conclusion, finding that Obi’s broad statement that he left Anambra without debt was misleading when measured against the DMO’s formal debt records.<\/p>\n But there is an equally important caveat.<\/p>\n The DMO records do\u00a0not, by themselves, establish that Obi left unpaid salaries, unpaid contractors or unpaid pensions.<\/p>\n Lost and Found: Salma Hope Yakubu is Alive<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u25aa\ufe0e US$30.323 million\u00a0in external debt
\n\u25aa\ufe0e \u20a63.026 billion in\u00a0domestic debt
\nThose are DMO\u00a0figures.<\/p>\n