By Ayodele Oni
The Presidency has demanded from former Anambra State Governor and candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, (NDC), Peter Obi, whether he will withdraw from presidential race, now that Anambra State Government has released details of indebtedness of his administration in the state.
Reacting to the ongoing dispute between presidential candidate of the NDC and the state government over the debts and financial liabilities, it added that the Anambra State Government has now responded with claims concerning liabilities allegedly left by the former governor’s administration.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in a post on X on Wednesday, said Obi claimed to have left Anambra without debt and challenged him to follow through on his pledge to quit the presidential race if his claim was disproved.
Onanuga wrote, “Peter Obi claimed he left Anambra with a clean slate of debt and even threatened to quit the presidential race if his claims were proven otherwise.
“Now, the Anambra government has confronted him with facts and figures showing he owed Water Corporation workers, teachers, and pension and gratuities, and had also borrowed for frivolous things.
“The ball is back in his court. Will he follow through on his threat by quitting the race?” he asked.
The reaction followed a fresh response by the Anambra State Government to Obi’s Tuesday denial of claims that his administration left behind inherited debts, including a ₦2bn ecological fund, contractor liabilities and unpaid salaries, gratuities and pensions.
Obi had said his administration cleared more than ₦35bn in historical gratuities and arrears and left office without outstanding salary, pension or gratuity obligations.
He also disputed the government’s claim concerning the ecological fund, saying more than ₦2.13bn was left untouched in a First Bank account for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis.
However, in a statement on Wednesday, Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor, disputed Obi’s account, saying the account he identified was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account and not an ecological fund account.
Mefor revealed the government obtained a certified printout of the account and claimed that “from 2011 when the account was opened until date, there has never been any such amount—whether as inflow or balance—in the account.”
Obi had challenged anyone who could establish that his account of the state’s finances was incorrect, saying, “If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning.
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