The Governor
of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano has revealed that contrary to the
sanctimonious posturing of his predecessor, former governor Peter Obi,
the state
was saddled with a huge domestic debt of N127bn when Obi left office in March
2014.
Speaking in
the Governor’s Lodge, Amawbia on Tuesday, Governor Obiano explained that his
silence over the monstrous debt his predecessor sought to tie his hands with
had been mainly because he did not want to allow his regime to be distracted at
inception so that he would concentrate on the delivering his promise of good
governance to Ndi Anambra.
According to
him, the N127bn debt came mostly from the 101 road contracts that the former
governor hurriedly awarded at the dying minutes of his regime without making
any provision whatsoever for them in order to wrong-foot his administration
from the very first day.
Governor
Obiano further listed other disingenuous designs by his successor to make sure
that his regime never really took off as the last minute employment of 6000
workers without provision for their welfare as well as the various hotels and
independent power projects which he had no plans to complete.
He however
revealed that he has quietly completed 51 out of the 101 roads that Obi saddled
him with and assured Ndi Anambra that the remaining 50 would soon be completed
too.
Governor
Obiano’s revelation came on the heels of the growing inconsistencies in the
figures being thrown up by former governor Obi which have left many discerning
observers wondering just how much the former governor actually left behind.
They point
at Obi’s sudden volte-face from his earlier declaration that he handed N75bn
cash to his successor to declare at the flag off of the PDP campaign in Onitsha
yesterday that the actual amount he left when he handed over was N48,626bn.
While
delivering an address that has been mostly castigated by political analysts as
suicidal, former governor Obi was caught on camera saying “when I was leaving
this place, we left in savings N26bn. We set aside for important projects,
N23,629bn. If you put the two together, it will come to N48, 626bn.”
The former
governor’s contradictory accounts of the exact amount he bequeathed his
successor leaves huge gaps in the emerging narrative of dubious accountability
and an even more doubtful integrity.
This becomes
more so in the light of the revelation that in former governor Obi’s so called
N75bn handover are embedded all manner of moribund and toxic assets which the
former governor cleverly reported as profitable investments in the handover
note.
For
instance, Obi’s reportage of the 16.5% equity stake in Emenite, a fibre cement
roof and ceiling manufacturing company set up by the Premier of the old Eastern
Region, Dr M.I. Okpara which was shared between the five states that made up
the old Eastern Region as part of the trumpeted investments he had handed over
to Obiano is nothing but pure fraud.
Observers
also complained that it speaks volumes about Obi’s vaunted integrity to realize
that the former governor also reported that he had invested the sum of N3.5bn
in Interfact Beverages Limited when in reality what he invested was N1.4bn
only. This followed Governor Obiano’s announcement that his administration
would soon revise the discrepancy to reflect the actual equity stake of the
state in the company.
Other dead
bodies buried in Obi’s handover note include the N9bn involuntary investment in
the Nigerian Independent Power Project, conceived in 2004 by the Obasanjo
regime which the Federation Account was charged to fund on behalf of the 36
states of the federation. One wonders how this investment could have found its
way into Obi’s phantom savings that he handed over to Obiano in cash.
Other
components of Obi’s “famous” N75bn cash handover include the N4bn estimated value
of the land resources of Anambra State on which the oil installations of Orient
Petroleum Resources stands which Mr Obi “cleverly” converted into the state’s
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