Lagos, Saturday 19 September 2026
Peter Obi, the Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential candidate for 2027 and a former governor of Anambra State, has dismissed as a complete fabrication a letter circulating on social media in his name and addressed to the Obi of Onitsha.
The document, dated 19 September 2026 and headed “The Future of Ndigbo is Bleak”, purported to appeal to His Majesty Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Ugochukwu Achebe over a public row about Anambra’s finances under Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo. It carried a Movement Obi/Kwankwaso 2027 logo, a forged signature and a closing identification of Mr Obi as former Anambra state governor and NDC presidential candidate.
In a statement posted on his X account on Saturday afternoon, Mr Obi said the letter was “entirely false, malicious, and a fabrication by mischievous elements aimed at misleading the public”. He added that “the signature appended to the letter is completely forged” and urged the public and the media to “disregard this spurious publication”.
“My focus remains steadfastly on issues of national development, accountability, and building a better future for our people never on cheap fabrications,” he wrote.
The circulating text called for Anambra’s financial records and liabilities to be opened to scrutiny, argued that disputes between individuals should not “become wounds that divide our people”, and invoked the Igbo proverb that one tree does not make a forest. It also contained a number of spelling and drafting errors, including misspellings of the governor’s name and of Anambra itself, which sit uneasily with a formal letter to a traditional ruler.
The episode landed in the middle of an already bitter argument about the state’s books. The Soludo administration has said eight external loans linked to projects from Mr Obi’s years in office still carried an outstanding balance of about $92.35 million, or some ₦127.37 billion at the official rate as of 30 June 2026. Mr Obi has rejected that account, insisting he left office without unpaid salaries, pensions, gratuities or contractor debts and pointing to handover papers that, according to his former secretary to the state government, Oseloka Obaze, recorded a substantial positive position in 2014.
At least one outlet published the letter as if it were genuine before Mr Obi’s denial appeared. Sahara Reporters treated the document as an intervention by the former governor in the Soludo dispute and in wider South East politics. Mr Obi’s statement leaves no room for that reading.
Igwe Achebe, the 21st Obi of Onitsha, has occupied the throne since May 2002 and is one of the most prominent traditional rulers in the South East. There was no immediate comment from the palace on Saturday evening.
The speed with which the letter spread, and the haste with which some platforms treated it as authentic, will add to long running complaints in Nigerian politics about forged correspondence and campaign dirty tricks. Mr Obi, who ran for president on the Labour Party ticket in 2023 and is now the NDC standard bearer with former Kano governor Rabiu Kwankwaso as running mate, presented the episode as a distraction from the issues he says he intends to campaign on.
Whether the authors of the document are identified is another matter. For now the former governor’s position is unambiguous. He did not write to the Obi of Onitsha, he did not sign the letter, and he wants it treated as the forgery he says it is.
By John James
