A fresh controversy has erupted over the external debt allegedly inherited from former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, with an analysis of Debt Management Office records putting the state’s external debt stock at $30.32m as of December 31, 2013.
The analysis, authored by Olusola B. Adegbite, PhD and posted on his official Facebook wall, challenged the claim by the Anambra State Government that Obi left office in March 2014 with $123.77m in external loan obligations.
According to Adegbite, the DMO’s official record showed that Anambra’s total external debt stock stood at $30,323,574.40 as of December 31, 2013, about three months before Obi handed over power.
He argued that the figure was therefore a more appropriate reference point for assessing the state’s external debt position around the end of Obi’s tenure.
The DMO document indeed lists Anambra’s total external debt stock at $30,323,574.40 as of December 31, 2013.
Adegbite further cited subsequent DMO records, arguing that Anambra’s external debt stock rose to about $45.15m by December 31, 2014, and $60.78m by the end of 2015.
He therefore questioned the attribution of the entire $123.77m figure to the period when Obi was governor, insisting that the figures should be examined against the dates of loan agreements, disbursements and actual debt stock.
The controversy followed claims by the Soludo administration that the Obi administration contracted eight external loans amounting to $123,771,179.30, with an outstanding balance of about $92.35m, equivalent to N127.4bn, as of June 30, 2026. The state government said the loans were still being serviced.
Adegbite, however, argued that the loans in question were largely multilateral development facilities tied to specific sectors, including health, education, agriculture and environmental projects.
He maintained that such facilities were contracted by the Federal Government and accessed by states through subsidiary agreements, with repayments made through deductions from federal allocations.
According to him, the facilities were also disbursed in tranches after stipulated conditions had been met, meaning that the date of an agreement did not necessarily correspond with the date on which the entire facility was drawn.
Adegbite consequently argued that describing the entire $123.77m as money borrowed and left behind by Obi could create a misleading impression about the state’s actual debt position when he left office.
He also distinguished between external development loans and the liabilities Obi had repeatedly referred to when discussing his record at the point of handover.
Adegbite said Obi’s position had been that he left office without outstanding salaries, pensions, gratuities or debts owed to contractors for projects that had been completed and duly certified.
“Rather, his position, which he has stated at different fora, is that at the point of handover, the state did not owe a penny in salaries, pensions, gratuities or money to any contractor for projects duly executed and certified,” he wrote.
He added that this did not necessarily mean that the state had no long-term development loans or projects that had yet to be completed.
Adegbite also questioned how Obi could simultaneously have left substantial savings for his successor while allegedly accumulating large external debts for the state.
He cited the claim that Obi left more than $150m in savings and argued that the circumstances surrounding the loans required further clarification.
The debate has intensified after the Soludo administration released details of eight external loans which it said were linked to the former governor’s tenure. Reports on the state government’s position show that the loans included facilities for malaria control, Fadama development, health, education and other projects.
The dispute has consequently shifted from whether Anambra had external debt to questions over how the debt figures should be calculated, when the loans were contracted, when funds were disbursed and which administration should be associated with the resulting obligations.
Adegbite accused the Soludo administration of using the debt figures to portray Obi negatively, while the state government has maintained that its records show that loans and other financial obligations from previous administrations remain liabilities being serviced by the state.
The two sides have therefore presented conflicting interpretations of the same financial history, with DMO historical debt-stock data providing one set of figures and the Soludo administration relying on records of loan agreements and outstanding obligations.