I have examined the one-page financial handover document attributed to the Peter Obi administration, the latest three-page publication by the Anambra State Government dated September 16, 2026, and the various arguments that have followed. My conclusion is simple: the latest publication has not settled the debt question. It has made a proper reconciliation even more necessary.
The problem is not that the figures are necessarily false. The problem is that different figures are being presented as though they answer the same question when they do not. In public finance, dates, definitions and accounting classifications matter. A loan commitment is not necessarily a disbursement. A disbursement is not necessarily the same thing as outstanding debt. Outstanding debt at one date is not the same as outstanding debt twelve years later. And government liabilities are broader than conventional debt.
That distinction is crucial to the current Anambra debate.
The document circulated as the 2014 “Anambra State Handover Report” is itself revealing. The financial section is expressly described as a summary of the full financial statement. It reports local investments of ₦27 billion, foreign currency investments of US$156 million, certified State and MDA balances of ₦28.166 billion, an FGN-approved refund of ₦10 billion and estimated liabilities of ₦5 billion, producing what it calls a net balance of ₦86.666 billion.
But look at what is missing. There is no debt schedule. There is no line for domestic debt, external debt, outstanding principal on individual facilities, undisbursed loan commitments, guarantees or other contingent liabilities. Therefore, this single page cannot reasonably be presented as a complete statement of Anambra State’s financial position at handover.
But the reverse argument is equally important. The absence of a debt schedule on this page does not prove that Anambra was debt-free.
That is where the debate should begin, rather than end.
The latest publication from the Anambra State Government provides another set of figures. It identifies eight financing facilities signed between 2007 and 2013 and puts their aggregate original amounts at US$123.771 million. It then states that the outstanding balance on those facilities was US$92.353 million as at June 30, 2026, equivalent in the table to ₦127.372 billion.
At first glance, those numbers appear devastating. But an economist must resist the temptation to stop at the headline.
Look carefully at the table itself. The third column is headed “Loan Amount in USD as at Date Signed.” The fourth is headed “Outstanding Debt in USD as at 30 Jun 2026.”
Those are completely different measures.
The US$123.771 million is the aggregate of the original amounts associated with the facilities when they were signed. The US$92.353 million is the balance the State says remains outstanding on those facilities in June 2026.
Neither figure is the debt stock as at March 17, 2014.
And that missing figure is the elephant in the room.
If the purpose is to determine what Peter Obi actually handed over to Willie Obiano, then the relevant question is not simply how much financing was approved or contracted during Obi’s tenure. The relevant questions are: How much had actually been disbursed by March 17, 2014? How much principal remained outstanding on that date? How much of the approved financing remained undisbursed? Were further disbursements made after the change of administration? How much was subsequently repaid by each administration?
Without those answers, we are comparing apples with oranges and then arguing about the colour of the fruit.
There is an important independent benchmark which cannot simply be ignored. The Debt Management Office recorded Anambra’s external debt stock at US$30.324 million as at December 31, 2013. Its revised domestic debt table recorded ₦3.026 billion for Anambra at the same period.
Those are official debt-stock figures from an institution whose job is to track public debt. They do not necessarily provide the precise position on March 17, 2014, but they are much closer to the handover date than a June 2026 balance.
This produces an uncomfortable but necessary conclusion for both sides of the argument.
Anyone claiming that Anambra had absolutely no debt at the end of Peter Obi’s tenure has to reconcile that claim with the DMO’s official records.
But anyone claiming that Peter Obi handed over US$123.771 million in debt has an equally important burden of proof. The US$123.771 million in the new Anambra publication is not described as the outstanding balance on March 17, 2014. It is the sum of the original amounts listed at the dates the facilities were signed.
Those are not the same thing.
Consider, for example, a development loan approved for US$48 million. If only US$20 million had been disbursed by the handover date, it would be economically inaccurate to say that the State had already borrowed US$48 million simply because the agreement carried a US$48 million commitment. If another US$15 million was subsequently disbursed after the change of administration, it would also be inaccurate to attribute the entire US$35 million drawn over time to the administration that signed the original agreement.
This is not political semantics. It is basic public-sector debt accounting.
The same problem applies to the present claim that US$92.353 million remains outstanding in 2026. That figure may be perfectly genuine as a current balance. But it does not tell us how much was outstanding when Peter Obi left office. A debt balance can change because of additional disbursements, principal repayments, interest, exchange-rate movements, restructuring and other factors. A current balance cannot simply be projected backwards twelve years and assigned wholesale to the administration that originally signed the financing agreement.
There is another important issue in the present Anambra publication. Some of the facilities listed as State development financing were structured through the Federal Government rather than as conventional sovereign borrowing directly by Anambra from the World Bank. The World Bank’s documentation for the State Education Program Investment Project, for example, describes a US$150 million credit to the Federal Government of Nigeria, with funds to be disbursed to participating states, including Anambra, through subsidiary financing agreements. The project was also structured substantially around results based financing and disbursement linked indicators.
This distinction does not make a State obligation disappear. If Anambra entered into a valid subsidiary financing arrangement, the State could have a genuine repayment obligation to the Federal Government. But the legal and financial description matters. The Federal Republic of Nigeria being the sovereign borrower from IDA is not identical to saying that Anambra State itself was the sovereign borrower from the World Bank.
The precise State obligation therefore needs to be established from the relevant subsidiary agreements, disbursement records and debt accounts. This is another reason why simply adding original facility amounts and calling the total “Peter Obi’s debt” is insufficiently precise.
Indeed, the question becomes even more important for facilities signed in 2013, only months before the change of government. A financing agreement signed in 2013 does not tell us how much money had actually reached Anambra by March 17, 2014. Development programmes can involve staged disbursements linked to implementation milestones, procurement, counterpart funding or verified results. The World Bank’s SEPIP documentation, for example, explicitly describes a results based component and disbursement linked indicators.
To be continued tomorrow
Chiwuike Uba, PhD is a professor of economics
