Kenneth Okonkwo Says He Was Misled on Obi’s Anambra Debt Record as 2027 Campaign Heats Up
Kenneth Okonkwo, who was spokesman for Peter Obi’s 2023 presidential campaign, has said he was misled when he defended the former Anambra State governor against claims that he left behind debts and unpaid obligations. The reversal on the Kenneth Okonkwo Obi debt record came on Sunday during an appearance on Television Continental’s Sunday Politics.
Okonkwo is now a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and speaks for the presidential campaign council of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the party’s candidate for the 2027 election. He said recent disclosures by the Anambra State Government had changed his view, and that he was ready to change his position whenever fresh facts emerged.
During the 2023 campaign, Okonkwo had repeatedly told Nigerians that Obi left no debt, no unpaid salaries, no gratuity and no pension, and he challenged people to verify the claims. On Sunday he said he could no longer repeat those statements. He pointed to the state government’s claims that Obi’s administration obtained eight loans and that workers at the state-owned water corporation were owed salaries and arrears.
Okonkwo explained his new approach in courtroom terms. In 2023, he said, he campaigned for Obi as “examination in chief,” but in 2027 the process would be a cross-examination. He also recalled defending Obi’s family over a controversy about the cost of a wristwatch allegedly worn by a son of President Bola Tinubu.
His comments come amid a dispute between Obi and the Anambra State Government over the state’s debt profile. The row began after the state’s Commissioner for Finance, Izuchukwu Okafor, said Anambra was still servicing loans taken by previous administrations, including those of Obi and former Governor Willie Obiano. The state later said eight external facilities linked to projects during Obi’s tenure had a combined contracted value of $123.77 million, with $92.35 million outstanding as of June 30, 2026, based on figures it attributed to the Debt Management Office. It also released documents on N363.38 million in salary arrears it said were inherited from Obi’s administration, and said it had no evidence of an ecological fund Obi says he left.
Obi has rejected these claims. He maintains that he left office without outstanding debts and that his administration owed no salaries, pensions or contractors at handover. He says he left N2.1 billion in an ecological fund. He has also disputed the description of the $123.77 million as debt he left behind, arguing that the figure combines different categories of multilateral development financing. According to him, Anambra’s external debt was about $30 million when he left office in March 2014, citing DMO figures.
Obi is now the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, with Rabiu Kwankwaso as his running mate, which makes the exchange part of a wider contest between opposition camps ahead of 2027. Obi served as governor from March 2006 to March 2014, apart from a brief interruption in 2006, and handed over to Obiano.
Because both sides are politically engaged, the competing figures are likely to face further scrutiny. Voters may want to see the official debt records themselves, as the dispute over whose numbers are correct is unlikely to end soon.
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