Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The Anambra State Government has released official documents detailing N363.38 million in salary arrears owed to workers and pensioners of two defunct state agencies, intensifying a bitter dispute with former Governor Peter Obi, who insists he left the state without any outstanding financial obligations when he handed over power in March 2014.
The documents, shared on social media by Anambra State New Media, a platform affiliated with the state government, include a memo dated May 22, 2025, signed by a former Head of Service, and a terms-of-settlement agreement between the state government and the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees, signed on February 6, 2024. According to the memo, the state scheduled a second tranche of N363.381 million for payment in 2026 as part of an agreement to settle outstanding salary arrears involving the defunct Anambra State Water Corporation and the Anambra State Environmental Protection Agency. "The second payment in the sum of Three Hundred and Sixty-Three Million, Three Hundred and Eighty-One Thousand Naira only (N363,381,000.00) will be made in 2026," the document states, referencing Article 7 of the settlement agreement. The beneficiaries include next of kin, staff and pensioners of the two defunct agencies.
The Soludo administration maintains that the N363.381 million represents part of the salary arrears it inherited from Obi's administration, which it says left the entitlements of workers and pensioners of the two agencies unpaid. According to the government, the first tranche of the settlement has already been paid, while the second payment was provided for under the 2024 agreement. The settlement document itself shows that a verification exercise put the salary arrears of former Water Corporation workers at more than N1.32 billion, while the claims involving ANSEPA workers were put at about N238.18 million, with the agreement providing for payment in instalments. The government said it reached the out-of-court settlement after a dispute that had lasted about 14 years, and that the agreement would save the state about N1.3 billion.
The release of the documents follows a renewed exchange between the state government and Obi, who appeared on Arise Television's Prime Time programme on Thursday and maintained that he did not borrow money or issue bonds on behalf of Anambra State during his eight years as governor. "I, Mr Peter Obi, did not approach any financial institution to borrow money or issue bonds on behalf of Anambra State," he said, adding that the state had no outstanding salary, gratuity or pension payments due to workers when he handed over power. Obi also disputed the claim concerning a N2 billion ecological fund, saying the money was released shortly before the end of his tenure for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis and was left untouched in a First Bank account. "The money was therefore left 100 per cent intact in First Bank, in Account No. 2018779464, with a balance of over N2.13 billion," he said.
The documents, however, do not by themselves establish when the underlying arrears were incurred or whether they originated during Obi's tenure as governor, a distinction that has become central to the disagreement. The settlement agreement establishes that the dispute over the workers' claims was still unresolved when Soludo's administration entered into the settlement, but it does not attribute responsibility for the accumulation of the entire liability to any single administration. The state government has relied on the records to argue that financial obligations connected to the two agencies remained unresolved and were later addressed through an agreement reached under Governor Chukwuma Soludo.
The dispute has broader dimensions. Anambra's Commissioner for Information and Value Reorientation, Law Mefor, had previously said Obi left $123.77 million in external debt at the end of his tenure, with the outstanding balance standing at $92.35 million, equivalent to about N127.37 billion, as of June 30, 2026. Mefor listed the loans as including the Malaria Control Booster Project, the Third National Fadama Development Project, the Health System Development Project II, the State Education Programme Investment Project, the Community and Social Development Project, the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project and the Value Chain Development Project. Obi has countered that the facilities were concessionary multilateral support obtained by the Federal Government and on-lent to states, not commercial loans he personally procured, and that Anambra's foreign debt position rose from about $18 million when he assumed office to about $30 million when he left in March 2014.
The dispute comes amid the intensifying campaign for the 2027 general elections, scheduled for January 16, with the governorship and state assembly elections following on February 6. Obi is seeking the presidency on the platform of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, with Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso as his running mate. Governor Soludo has endorsed President Bola Tinubu for a second term and declared that his party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, will not field a presidential candidate. The debt dispute has therefore become a proxy battle in a wider political contest over Anambra's votes and the credibility of Obi's record as a public official.
The Anambra State Government has challenged Obi to produce evidence contradicting its claims. Obi, in turn, has said he would end his presidential campaign if anyone could establish that he left the state with unpaid salaries, gratuities or contractor liabilities. "If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning," he said. For now, both sides remain entrenched, and the documents released this week are the latest round in a dispute that shows no sign of resolution. The Debt Management Office, which both sides cite, has not issued a public statement reconciling the competing figures, and the underlying questions about what Obi left behind in Anambra remain contested. As the 2027 campaign intensifies, the battle over his legacy is likely to remain at the centre of Nigeria's political debate, with each side presenting its version of what happened when Peter Obi left office in March 2014.
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