Governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, has said the ongoing debt dispute between the Anambra State Government and former governor Peter Obi is not worthy of the controversy surrounding it.
Otti disclosed this while speaking in an exclusive interview with Arise Television, broadcast on Friday and monitored by THE WHISTLER.
The governor defended claims that Obi, who governed Anambra between 2006 and 2014, left the state with over $150m in foreign investments.
Otti recalled that it was in an article titled “The Triumph of Profligacy Over Prudence,” published on June 8, 2020, in ThisDay newspaper, that he cited and acknowledged Obi’s decision to leave the state’s accounts in credit as evidence that prudence was possible in governance.
“It is an account of what happened because I had said, as CEO of the bank at that time, he was going to leave the money in Naira, and when he came to me, I said No, Naira will keep losing value; you probably want to convert it to dollars.
“So it is a statement of fact and it is something that happened six years ago, and I haven’t spoken again,” Otti maintained.
On the controversy surrounding the inherited debts claimed by the Anambra Government, Otti said, “The Anambra document does not take away what I wrote.
“What I wrote was what he left as credit, so if there were debits or debts that were being owed, it is for the Anambra Government to come up with it. I just gave account of the savings and six years after, I still stand by that.
“I cannot talk about the debt, it is not within my competence to talk about it. I have seen something, and I am not too sure it calls for that much of controversy but having said that, what I documented in 2020 is factual, that is the area I come in.”
The Anambra Government is currently in a dispute over its debt schedule, which dates some of the external financing facilities to the Obi administration.
The state has continued to release documents to counter Obi’s claims of leaving the state debt-free, while also mounting pressure on him to account for his administration’s liabilities as he pursues his political ambition ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
THE WHISTLER reports that the Anambra Government had itemised eight external financing facilities associated with the Obi administration, with a combined original value of $123.77m and an outstanding balance of $92.35m as of June 30, 2026 (N127.37bn).
Other alleged liabilities raised by the state government include unpaid salaries, pension and gratuity arrears involving staff of the defunct Water Corporation, which Obi has disputed.