The Presidency has joined the dispute between Peter Obi and the Anambra State Government over the debts and liabilities of the state.

Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, said in a post on X on Wednesday that Obi had claimed he left Anambra without debt, and had promised to quit the presidential race if his claim was disproved.

Onanuga said the Anambra State Government had replied with figures showing Obi owed Water Corporation workers, teachers, pensions and gratuities, and had also borrowed for what he called frivolous things. He said the ball was now in Obi’s court, asking whether Obi would follow through on his threat to quit the race.

The reaction followed a fresh response from the Anambra State Government to Obi’s Tuesday denial that his administration left behind inherited debts, including a ₦2bn ecological fund, contractor liabilities and unpaid salaries, gratuities and pensions.

Obi said his administration cleared more than ₦35bn in historical gratuities and arrears and left office owing no salaries, pensions or gratuities. He also disputed the government’s claim on the ecological fund, saying more than ₦2.13bn was left untouched in a First Bank account for the Oko/Umuchiana erosion crisis.

On Wednesday, the state Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Law Mefor, disputed Obi’s account. He said the account Obi identified was an Internally Generated Revenue Consolidated Revenue Account, not an ecological fund account. Mefor said the government obtained a certified printout of the account and claimed that from 2011, when it was opened, until now, no such amount had ever appeared in it as an inflow or a balance.

Obi had challenged anyone who could show his account of the state’s finances was wrong, saying, “If anybody can establish anything to the contrary, I will stop campaigning.”

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The disagreement is expected to shape public perception ahead of the 2027 elections