Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has restated that the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, saved $155 million in the coffers of Anambra State Government during his time as governor of Anambra State.
Mr Otti spoke during an interview with Arise News which was broadcast on Friday morning.
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The governor explained that he was the Chief Executive of the now defunct Diamond Bank at the time Mr Obi saved the amount in the state’s coffers.
Diamond Bank, in 2018, announced that it had merged with Access Bank which would take effect from half of 2019.
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Meanwhile, Mr Otti’s comment was coming on the heels of controversies surrounding the financial situation of Anambra State at the time Mr Obi left office as governor of the state.
The Anambra State Government has repeatedly claimed that Mr Obi, who served as governor of the Anambra from 2006 to 2014, left an external debt of $123.7 million incurred from eight foreign loans he took while in office.
But Mr Obi has denied taking any loans while in office, explaining that the eight facilities being referred to by the government were “concessionary development-support funds secured by the federal government for states selected for it to address specific needs.”
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The former governor then argued that even if the $123.7 million debts was true, his over $150 million savings or the $10 million income the savings had been generating annually was enough to cover the debts.
‘I stand by my words’
During the Arise News interview, Mr Otti recalled that he had provided details of Mr Obi’s $155 million savings in a column published in ThisDay Newspaper in 2020.
The governor stressed that he stood by his words, stressing that he authored the piece to make a case about financial prudence.
“I was using it to prove that it’s still possible for people to be prudent in government,” he said
The Abia governor recalled what happened between him and Mr Obi at the time.
“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.
“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.
What about debts?
Mr Otti stressed that although the Anambra State Government had been accusing Mr Obi of leaving debts behind, the accusations do not dismiss his submission that the former governor left $155 million in savings.
“It doesn’t take away what I wrote (about $155 million savings),” he responded when reminded about the state government’s debt claims against Mr Obi.
“What I wrote about was what he (Mr Obi) left as credit. I just gave an account of the savings,” the former bank CEO added.
The column Otti wrote in 2020
Titled “the Triumph of Profligacy Over Prudence,” Mr Otti’s article was published on ThisDay Newspaper on 8 June 2020.
In the article, Mr Otti wrote that although he did not belong to the same political party as Mr Obi, the former governor remains “a true example of excellent leadership and accountability in today’s world where such attributes are in very short supply.”
He continued by remarking that Mr Obi managed “to clear all debts” and left funds for his successor before giving details about the $155 million savings.
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“One can attest to the fact that some $155 million was invested in the tier two capital of three Nigerian banks with maturities of about 5 years at interest rates of up to 9% per annum to the credit of the (Anambra) State,” Mr Otti wrote.
The former bank CEO explained that the Naira equivalent of the funds at the time of Mr Obi’s investment was about N25 billion.
“If those funds were rolled over at maturity in 2019, they would be worth about N62 billion today.
“If interest is assumed to remain at 9% for the past 6 years, an additional N33.5b would have accrued to bring the present value of the investments to over N95 billion,” he said at the time.
“This is one of the advantages of prudence and financial literacy.”
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