Obi Challenges Soludo: Find One Person I Owe and I Will End 2027 Campaign

 Obi Challenges Soludo: Find One Person I Owe and I Will End 2027 Campaign Peter Obi has challenged Anambra Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s gover...

 Obi Challenges Soludo: Find One Person I Owe and I Will End 2027 Campaign

Peter Obi has challenged Anambra Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s government to name one person his administration owed when he left office, saying he will abandon his 2027 presidential bid if anyone produces that evidence.

The Nigeria Democratic Congress candidate spoke after Anambra Finance Commissioner Izuchukwu Okafor said the state still services loans taken under previous governors, including Obi and Willie Obiano. Okafor said monthly FAAC deductions continue because of those inherited facilities. He added that Soludo has not borrowed from any commercial bank and has cut the state’s debt by more than 83 per cent while clearing unpaid contracts, gratuities and pensions.

Obi rejected the link to his tenure. He governed Anambra from 2006 to 2014 and left office almost 13 years ago.

“On the day I left office, I was not owing any pension, salaries and gratuities. I didn’t owe any money that the Anambra State Government was supposed to pay. I did not owe a single supplier or contractor. If you find even one person I owed, I will end my 2027 campaign today,” he said.

He said he paid every contractor whose work was complete and whose papers had been processed. He also said he left more than ₦2 billion in a First Bank ecological-fund account at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, money he reserved for an ongoing erosion project rather than spend it before handover. He offered to publish the account details and said he would quit the campaign if the records contradict his claim.

The dispute is not new. Obi has long said he left about $150 million in state reserves and borrowed nothing from Nigerian banks. Obiano’s government later put inherited liabilities much higher. When Soludo took office in 2022, he said audited accounts showed more than ₦100 billion in debt and little cash on hand. Neither side has published a full public ledger that settles the argument.

Obi also said Soludo and other governors may back any 2027 candidate they choose. He insisted voters, not governors, should decide the election if it is free and fair.

The exchange raises the temperature between two of Anambra’s most prominent politicians as the presidential race gathers pace. Okafor described institutional loans still deducted at source. Obi answered with a personal challenge: produce one unpaid worker, pensioner or contractor from 2014, or drop the charge.

Family Writers Press International.