By Ogochukwu Isioma
Twelve months after he left office, fresh figures released by the Edo State Accountant-General’s Office with a kicker by the Debt Management Office (DMO) are showing that Edo was the third most indebted state in the country with figure hovering around a trillion naira.
Recall that during an interaction on December 9, 2024, with the State Assets Verification Committee set up at the inception of the Senator Monday Okpebholo administration to audit the state’s assets and liabilities, Accountant-General of the state, Mr. Julius Anelu, revealed that as at November 11, 2024, when Obaseki’s tenure ended, Edo State’s internal debt stood at over ₦1 trillion, while its external debt amounted to ₦282 billion.
He attributed the increase in the state’s debt to the depreciation of the naira, stating that the loans were taken when the currency’s value was higher.
In its latest report, the DMO ranks Edo State third among the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in total debt as of December 31, 2024, running very close to one trillion naira, covering both internal and external debts.
The Edo State Commissioner for Information, Prince Kassim Afegbua, had, during an interaction with journalists, loosely put the debt figure at N600,000. The government disclosed that on road projects alone, it inherited about N187 billion of claims by contractors.
With the state’s accountant-general and the DMO releasing Edo’s latest debt figures, it can clearly be stated that the information commissioner was putting the figure mildly.
Obaseki, left the state after being at the helm of affairs for eight years from 2016 to 2024.
He inherited a debt profile of N45,091 billion internal debt and external debt of $183,641 million from his predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole, who was governor from 2008 to 2016.
But dismissing the state government’s allegations against his former principal as “false and outrightly out of place”, Osagie said the lies being spewed by the Okpebholo administration were giving the country a bad image, stressing that such comments rub off negatively on the president of the country and the country in general.
*Additional information culled from NEWMATA online
