Peter Obi Says He Left Anambra $150 Million Richer, Twelve Years Later Someone Says He Actually Left It $123 Million in Debt

Let's talk about the most Nigerian kind of argument there is: two people disagreeing, in public, about numbers from over a decade ago, right as one of them needs those numbers to look clean for a presidential run.

The Anambra State Government, under Governor Soludo, says when Peter Obi left office in March 2014, he left behind eight external loan facilities worth $123.77 million, and $92.35 million of that is apparently still being paid off as of this year. Twelve years later. Somebody in Awka is still writing cheques for a governor who left office when some of today's voters were in primary school.

Obi's response was immediate and, true to form, extremely specific: he never personally borrowed a naira or dollar or issued a single bond for the state. What the government is calling "debt," he says, was actually concessionary development financing arranged by the Federal Government and the World Bank, simply routed through the state for things like malaria eradication and erosion control. Not a loan he took out, just a loan that happened to exist near him. He also says Anambra's real external debt was about $18 million when he came in and roughly $30 million when he left, nowhere close to $123 million.

And then, just to really make his point, he added that he left the state $150 million richer in cash and investments anyway, so even if their number were true, he'd still be net positive. That's not just denying the debt, that's denying the debt and also submitting a bank statement.

Naturally, APC people didn't wait for the full story before calling for him to drop out of the 2027 race entirely. Meanwhile, Obi mentioned he'd stayed quiet on this for days because he was mourning his elder brother, only speaking now because the noise wouldn't stop.

Twelve years, two governments, three sets of numbers, and still no agreement on simple subtraction.