Anambra says Peter Obi left $123.77m in foreign loans. The DMO put the state's entire external debt at $30.32m 76 days before he left office

On 16 September 2026 the Anambra State Government published a five-page statement, signed by the Commissioner for Information, Law Mefor, under the title "Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies". Its first numbered point says the former governor "Contracted US$ 123.77million in external debt alone", and its second says eight external borrowings his administration "left for his successors" still had $92,353,182.00 outstanding on 30 June 2026. The Debt Management Office's own table of state external debt at 31 December 2013, 76 days before Mr Obi left office on 17 March 2014, puts Anambra's entire external debt at $30,323,574.40. That is 24.50 per cent of the $123.77 million, and $62,029,607.60 less than the state now says is owed on the eight loans alone.

The statement sets out the eight loans in a table on its second page, which it describes as a summary of "the latest report from the Debt Management Office (DMO) on Anambra's debt status (as of June 2026)". They are the Malaria Control Booster Project, signed on 21 May 2007 for $9,467,700.00; the Third National Fadama Development Project, 4 August 2009, $7,179,281.90; Health System Development Project II additional financing, 18 August 2009, $4,124,992.56; Malaria Control Booster additional financing, 30 December 2009, $4,429,327.10; the Community and Social Development Project, 30 March 2009, $4,842,500.00; and three loans signed on 30 July 2013: the State Education Programme Investment Project, $48,333,333.00, the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, $37,894,044.74, and the Value Chain Development Project, $7,500,000.00. The eight amounts add to $123,771,179.30, the total printed. The outstanding balances add to $92,353,182.00, and the naira column to N127,372,049,434.12, also as printed; every row converts at the same rate, N1,379.1842 to the dollar.

The table's own column heading describes the $123.77 million as the "loan amount in USD as at date signed". It is the sum of the eight facilities as agreed, not a balance owed at any date. The statement does not claim that $123.77 million was owed when Mr Obi left office; its first point uses the word "contracted", and on the state's own dates every one of the eight agreements was signed while he was governor. The three loans signed on 30 July 2013, 230 days before he left, account for $93,727,377.74 of the $123.77 million and for $74,581,346.42, or 80.76 per cent, of the $92.35 million now outstanding.

The DMO's current figures are consistent with the statement's account of what Anambra owes abroad today. Its table of external debt at 30 June 2026 gives Anambra $100,836,198.41, all of it under the multilateral heading. The $92,353,182.00 the state attributes to the eight loans is 91.59 per cent of that total; the other $8,483,016.41 is not accounted for in the statement. Six months earlier, at 31 December 2025, the DMO put Anambra's external debt at $102,579,265.24.

Where the statement and the DMO's record part company is over when the debt was built. Its second point says that "As at the date HE Peter Obi left office (17th March 2014), there were and still are 8 different external borrowings his administration left", and calls the $92.35 million "the total balance of such loans left by HE Peter Obi". The DMO's state-by-state tables give Anambra's total external debt as $16,869,393.14 at 31 December 2006, nine months after Mr Obi first took office; $30,323,574.40 at 31 December 2013; $41,459,335.44 at 30 June 2014, 105 days after he left; $45,154,626.04 at 31 December 2014; and $100,836,198.41 at 30 June 2026.

A loan's outstanding balance grows only when more of it is drawn, or when exchange rates change its value in dollars; repayments reduce it. At the end of 2013 the DMO recorded $30.32 million owed on all of Anambra's external loans together, including whatever had then been drawn on the eight facilities. For the eight loans to carry $92.35 million in 2026, at least $62.03 million must have been added to them after that date, unless the 2013 figure left out large sums or exchange rates raised the dollar value of the debt. Even measured from 30 June 2014, after Mr Obi had gone, the eight loans now carry $50,893,846.56 more than the state's whole external debt on that date, or 55.11 per cent of their present balance. Of the net rise the DMO records between the end of 2006 and June 2026, $13,454,181.26 came by the end of 2013 and $70,512,624.01 after it. On this record, most of the $92.35 million the statement calls loans left by Mr Obi was disbursed after he left office, under facilities his government signed.

The DMO's tables carry a qualification that matters here. A footnote to the December 2013 table reads: "Total outstanding against each State excludes arrears owed to the FGN as a result of unanticipated disbursements or exchange rate gains due to exchange rate fluctuations in 2013." The June 2014 table has a similar note for disbursements in 2014. The state figures for those dates may therefore understate what Anambra owed, and the tables do not say by how much. The DMO also published no state table for 17 March 2014 itself; the nearest are 31 December 2013 and 30 June 2014, and the debt was higher on the second date by $11,135,761.04.

Mr Obi's reply, as reported by Nairametrics on 25 September, used figures that the DMO's published tables largely bear out. He put Anambra's external debt at about $18 million when he took office in March 2006, about $30 million when he left in March 2014 and about $45.15 million at 31 December 2014. The last figure matches the DMO's $45,154,626.04 for that date. The $30 million matches the DMO's figure for 31 December 2013, not a figure for March 2014, which the DMO did not publish. The earliest state table on the DMO's website, for 31 December 2006, gives $16,869,393.14; Vero Record found no DMO figure for March 2006 to set against his $18 million.

Nairametrics also reported Mr Obi as saying that he did not obtain loans for Anambra, and that the facilities were development programmes secured by the Federal Government for selected states and taken up through subsidiary arrangements. The state's table says the eight agreements were signed between May 2007 and July 2013. On the documents read for this report, both statements can be true at once: the facilities were committed while he was in office, and most of the money was drawn after he had gone. Mr Obi asked for three figures to be kept apart: the amount approved, the amount drawn during his tenure and the balance on 17 March 2014. The state's table gives the first. The DMO's tables give the state's total before and after his departure, but not the second or third for these eight loans.

The naira figure in the statement, N127.4 billion, is the June 2026 dollar balance converted at the rate of N1,379.1842 that every row of the table uses. It is not the value of the loans in naira when they were signed or when Mr Obi left office.

The statement makes other claims that this report does not test: that Mr Obi's government spent about $4.05 billion over eight years, that it left salary, pension and gratuity arrears, and that a First Bank account he named never held N2.13 billion. Vero Record did not obtain the documents needed to check them, and makes no finding on them.

The documents read here do not show how much of each of the eight loans had been drawn by 17 March 2014, because the DMO publishes only one total for each state. They do not show whether the signing dates in the state's table are the dates of the federal credit agreements or of Anambra's subsidiary agreements, and the loan-level DMO report the statement says it summarises is not published. Nothing in the documents suggests wrongdoing by anyone, and none is alleged. Neither the Anambra State Government nor Mr Obi was asked for comment before publication; the figures above are their own and the DMO's, set against each other.

What this rests on

Two primary records, both downloaded on 31 October 2026 and read for this report. (1) Anambra State Government, "Gov Peter Obi and Record of Public Debt in Anambra: Facts Beyond Propaganda and Lies", five pages, signed by Law Mefor, Commissioner for Information, dated 16 September 2026 (PDF created 16 September 2026), from anambrastate.gov.ng; Fact No.1 on page 1 and Fact 2 with the loan table on page 2. (2) Debt Management Office state external debt tables: as at 31 December 2006, 31 December 2013 (with footnote), 30 June 2014 (with footnote), 31 December 2014, 31 December 2025 and 30 June 2026, each one page, from dmo.gov.ng; Anambra is row 4 in each. Arithmetic re-done. Loan amounts: 9,467,700.00 + 7,179,281.90 + 4,124,992.56 + 4,429,327.10 + 48,333,333.00 + 4,842,500.00 + 37,894,044.74 + 7,500,000.00 = $123,771,179.30, as printed. Outstanding: 4,482,405.27 + 4,373,315.32 + 2,043,022.18 + 3,170,939.96 + 37,343,825.28 + 3,702,152.85 + 34,862,521.14 + 2,375,000.00 = $92,353,182.00, as printed. Naira column: 6,182,062,526.38 + 6,031,607,390.96 + 2,817,703,910.91 + 4,373,310,291.98 + 51,504,013,793.74 + 5,105,950,716.70 + 48,081,838,328.45 + 3,275,562,475.00 = N127,372,049,434.12, as printed; each row divided by its dollar balance gives N1,379.1842 per dollar. Three loans signed 30 July 2013: 48,333,333.00 + 37,894,044.74 + 7,500,000.00 = $93,727,377.74 committed; 37,343,825.28 + 34,862,521.14 + 2,375,000.00 = $74,581,346.42 outstanding, which is 80.76 per cent of $92,353,182.00. DMO comparisons: 92,353,182.00 - 30,323,574.40 = $62,029,607.60; 30,323,574.40 / 123,771,179.30 = 24.50 per cent; 92,353,182.00 / 100,836,198.41 = 91.59 per cent; 100,836,198.41 - 92,353,182.00 = $8,483,016.41; 30,323,574.40 - 16,869,393.14 = $13,454,181.26; 100,836,198.41 - 30,323,574.40 = $70,512,624.01; 41,459,335.44 - 30,323,574.40 = $11,135,761.04; 92,353,182.00 - 41,459,335.44 = $50,893,846.56, which is 55.11 per cent of $92,353,182.00; 92,353,182.00 / 123,771,179.30 = 74.62 per cent of the committed amount still outstanding. Days counted: 31 December 2013 to 17 March 2014 = 31 (January) + 28 (February) + 17 = 76 days; 17 March 2014 to 30 June 2014 = 14 + 30 + 31 + 30 = 105 days; 30 July 2013 to 17 March 2014 = 230 days; 17 March 2006 to 31 December 2006 = 289 days, about nine months.

What this does not establish

How much of each of the eight loans had been drawn by 17 March 2014, or in any later year: the DMO publishes one total per state, not loan-level balances, and the loan-level DMO report the statement says it summarises is not published. How large the arrears excluded from the DMO's December 2013 and June 2014 state totals were for Anambra; the footnotes say such arrears were left out but give no figures. How much of the change in dollar balances since 2013 reflects exchange-rate movements between the loans' currencies and the dollar rather than new drawings. Whether the signing dates in the state's table are those of the federal credit agreements or of Anambra's subsidiary agreements; they were not checked against the lenders' own records. What makes up the $8,483,016.41 of Anambra's June 2026 external debt that is not among the eight loans. Mr Obi's figures are taken from Nairametrics' report of his reply; Vero Record did not read his original post. The statement's other claims (spending of about $4.05 billion, pension and salary arrears, the First Bank account) were not tested. Nothing in the documents suggests wrongdoing by anyone, and none is alleged. Neither the Anambra State Government nor Mr Obi was asked for comment.