By Great Imo Jonathan
Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s attempt to rewrite the financial history of Anambra State has backfired. What was presented as a data-driven rebuttal of Peter Obi has turned out to be a cocktail of mathematical errors, lies, deliberate misrepresentation of World Bank programs, and outright falsehoods about salaries and the ecological fund.
Here are the 4 major lies and the facts that expose them:
Lie number one: Peter Obi Left Anambra With $123.77 Billion / $123.77 Million Debt.
The Soludo government through Commissioner for Information, Law Mefor who on Arise Television admitted to Rufai Oseni that he was not conversant with the numbers or debt record despite publishing the lies Soludo gave to him, claimed Peter Obi contracted $123.77 million in external loans during his tenure, with $92.35 million still outstanding as of June 30, 2026, valued at N127.37 billion.
In one release, the government even wrote *$123.77 BILLION*, a figure larger than Nigeria’s entire public debt of $97 billion. 8517
FACT: The official Debt Management Office (DMO) record shows as of December 31, 2013, a few months before Obi left office in March 2014, Anambra’s *total external debt was only $30.32 million*, not $123.77 million. And this was not borrowed by Peter Obi but development funding borrowed by federal government of Nigeria.
The so-called $123.77 million was the contracted value of federal programmes, not the amount borrowed or disbursed. What Soludo is doing is taking the total approved envelope for multi-state programs and attributing it as debt taken by Obi.
Lie number two: Those Loans Were Peter Obi’s Personal Borrowings.
Soludo’s list includes projects like: Malaria Control Booster Project, Third National Fadama Development Project, Health System Development Project II, State Education Programme Investment Project, NEWMAP and VCDP. 8517
FACT: These were *federally arranged World Bank-supported programmes* negotiated by the Federal Government and implemented by all 36 states and FCT. Obi did not contract them as state commercial loans. As fact shows, Soludo’s camp listed FADAMA and NEWMAP as evidence of reckless borrowing, but these were federal programs extended to states, not Anambra borrowings under Obi.
Lie number three: Peter Obi Left Salaries, Pensions and Gratuities.
The Soludo government through Commissioner for Finance Izuchukwu Okafor claimed it inherited salary, gratuity and pension debts from Obi and Obiano, and that it had not taken commercial loans but was still servicing inherited debts.
FACT: Peter Obi’s record is documented and verified. He stated his administration systematically liquidated historical gratuities and arrears dating back several years, amounting to over N35 billion.
At handover, he said: “At the point of handover, the state owed nothing in salaries, gratuities, or pensions, nor did we owe anything to any contractor for projects duly executed and certified.”. Peter Obi invited EFCC, ICPC and other anticorruption agencies and bank managers of banks where Peter Obi invested and deposited Anambra State Government money and they all publicly stood as witnesses, including Dr Alex Otti the current Governor of Abia State.
In March 2014, Peter Obi handed over a state with no outstanding salary, pension, or gratuity obligations and over N75 billion in savings. Willie Obiano, his successor, publicly confirmed receiving the savings.
Soludo is conflating debts accumulated by himself and during the 8 years of Obiano after Obi left. The so called water board staff salaries they claimed were not paid where owed by previous governments before Peter Obi came. The water board was none functional and the state government stopped paying them salaries. When Peter Obi was offsetting backlog of salary, pensions and gratuitous owned by previous administrations before him, he invited the water board workers for negotiations so that they could be paid based on new terms but they refused and rather chose to go to court against the administration. Their case was still in court and unresolved when Peter Obi administration ended. Yet Peter Obi left iver 75 Billion Naira for the next administration. The so called water board staff salaries were peanuts that the next administration could have taken care of from the billions Peter Obi left behind after the court decision. But Soludo and his clueless sponsors wants a man who left power 12 years ago to take responsibility for their own administration’s choices. Very funny characters indeed.
Lie number four: The N2 Billion Ecological Fund Was Looted / Spent.
Soludo’s team alleged Obi did not repay N2.1 billion ecological fund.
FACT: Obi has given the most specific rebuttal ever in Nigerian politics. He said the N2 billion ecological fund was released barely three months before the end of his tenure for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis.
He refused to spend it under pressure, insisting government is a continuum and the fund was project-tied.
Peter Obi left it *100% intact* in *First Bank, Account No. 2018779464*, with a balance of over *N2.13 billion* at handover, and that this fund was NOT even included in the over N75 billion savings he left behind.
He has thrown an open challenge: “If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning.” To date, Soludo has not produced a bank statement showing that account empty on March 17, 2014.
I am challenging okoko Professor Chukwuma Soludo to publish the statement of this account dating back January 2013 to December 2014. If Soludo doee not in the next 24 hours I will publicly declare him a shameless lying professor and a governor of particular concern. Such characters must be publicly exposed for the benefit and sanity of Nigeria. Professors who rig elections for thugs to lead Nigerian government are a dangerous and should not be tolerated.
We must understand why Soludo is oing this.
This is not about accounting. It is about 2027 politics. The Presidency through Bayo Onanuga seized on Soludo’s false N127.37 billion figure to dare Peter Obi to quit the race, proving it is a coordinated political attack by a bunch of shameless drug dealers and certificate forgers who are afraid to allow American court publish their records. They simply recruited a shameless lying professor who was once arrested by the EFCC for printing nylon currency for Nigeria.
But facts are stubborn. DMO records, bank statements, and Obiano’s own handover testimony prove Peter Obi kept Anambra’s books clean. Soludo’s phantom debts are the real scandal.
Great Imo Jonathan
