How Peter Obi Saved Over $150 Million In Anambra – Alex Otti

Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has reaffirmed that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), saved $155 million in foreign reserves for Anambra State during his tenure as governor.

Speaking during an interview on Arise News broadcast on Friday morning, Otti explained that he was serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the now-defunct Diamond Bank when the transactions were processed.

Otti’s clarification comes amid ongoing debates and contrasting claims made by successive administrations in Anambra State regarding the exact financial status and debt liabilities left behind by the Obi administration, which governed the state from 2006 to 2014.

While state officials have pointed to $123.7 million in foreign loans, Obi has maintained that those were federal concessionary development funds and emphasized that the accrued interest and total dollar reserves left behind far exceeded any official liabilities.

Addressing the matter, Otti noted that he had previously documented the full financial records of the $155 million deposit in a published column in 2020 and remains steadfast in his account.

“I was using it to prove that it’s still possible for people to be prudent in government,” Otti said.

The governor recounted the specific advice he provided to the former Anambra governor to protect the state’s capital reserves against currency devaluation.

“He (Mr Obi) was going to leave the money in Naira. But he came to me, as the CEO of the (Diamond) bank at the time, and I told him, ‘this money you want to keep, Naira will keep losing value. You probably should convert it to dollars’ and it was converted,” Otti revealed.

“So, it is a statement of facts. And it was something that happened several years ago. And six years after, I still stand by that,” he maintained.

When asked about the state government’s counter-claims regarding inherited debts, Otti emphasized that financial liabilities do not negate the physical existence of the saved reserves.

“It doesn’t take away what I wrote (about $155 million savings),” Otti noted. “What I wrote about was what he (Mr Obi) left as credit. I just gave an account of the savings.”