Otti repeats claim that Obi left $155 million in Anambra savings

Abia State Governor Alex Otti has repeated his claim that former Anambra governor Peter Obi left $155 million in savings in the state’s coffers when he left office. Otti made the statement during an interview with Arise News broadcast on Friday. He said he was chief executive of Diamond Bank at the time and had advised Obi to convert the funds from naira into dollars because of the risk of further currency depreciation.

According to Otti, the funds were invested in the tier-two capital of three Nigerian banks, with maturities of about five years and interest rates of up to nine per cent. He said the naira equivalent was approximately N25 billion at the time of investment. Otti said the investments demonstrated financial prudence and maintained that he stood by details he had published in a ThisDay column in 2020.

He said the funds, if rolled over at maturity, would have been worth about N62 billion in 2019, with additional interest potentially bringing their value to more than N95 billion based on the assumptions in his article. The comments come amid a dispute over the financial position Obi left behind after serving as Anambra governor from 2006 to 2014. The Anambra State Government has repeatedly said he left $123.7 million in external debt from eight foreign loans.

Obi has denied taking loans, saying the facilities were concessionary development-support funds secured by the Federal Government for selected states and intended for specific needs. He has also argued that, even if the debt figure were accepted, the savings and income generated by them would have been enough to cover it. Otti said the state government’s debt claims did not invalidate his account of the savings.

He described his intervention as an attempt to show that prudent financial management was possible in government. The source material contains no response from the Anambra government to Otti’s latest comments.