PFIPC Controversy Raises Fresh Questions Over Budget Transparency

What started as the Presidency’s attempt to dismiss the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) as a fictitious organisation has snowballed into a much wider controversy over the integrity of Nigeria’s public institutions.

It has also raised a number of questions on how an agency declared non-existent could supposedly operate within government circles and feature in the 2026 Appropriation Act with a N1.3 billion allocation.

Yesterday, opposition leaders, lawyers, civil society groups and former senior government officials stepped up calls for an independent investigation warning that the affair has become a test of the Tinubu administration’s commitment to transparency and accountability.

The Presidency has dismissed Adeniyi Adeyemi as an impostor and cleared Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila of bribery allegations but the central question has shifted.

The question now is not whether Adeyemi faked documents, but whether the systems of governance in Nigeria are weak enough to allow a fictitious institution to pass through several layers of official scrutiny.

The Presidency’s narrative timeline shows that the first signs of trouble appeared in October 2025 when the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) complained that the activities of PFIPC were inconsistent with its statutory mandate.

Gbajabiamila had immediately petitioned the police and Department of State Services (DSS), calling the outfit fraudulent, the Presidency said. Adeyemi was later arrested and investigators reportedly recovered fake documents. The police suspected both the council and his appointment were fake.

Usually such an explanation would have cleared the air. Instead, new questions were asked because the same council was later in the 2026 Appropriation Act with an allocation of over N1.3 billion for personnel, overheads and capital expenditure. This changed the controversy from a supposed criminal case to a governance conundrum.

What matters most is not the allegation of bribery. It is, rather, the budgetary trail.

There is no one person writing Nigeria’s budget. Proposals are usually initiated by the relevant institution before any agency can get an allocation, examined by the Budget Office, approved by the Executive in the Federal Executive Council and finally signed into law by the President after a thorough scrutiny by committees in both chambers of the National Assembly.

The implication is that if the Presidency insists that PFIPC never existed legally, then one of Nigeria’s most fundamental public finance processes appears to have failed. Stakeholders pointed to implications far beyond this particular controversy.

The question of institutional validation is also left aside, because Adeyemi was not merely issuing press statements. Public records show meetings with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, meetings with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), consultations with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), and plans for a World Investment Summit.

He stated that the council also maintained office space in the Federal Secretariat, operated bank accounts through the CBN and got recognition from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service.

How scandal exposes weaknesses in National Assembly oversight
One institution that could be responsible for a lot, perhaps most, of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) scandal is the current bicameral National Assembly led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

From the outset – and maybe because he was the first among equals in the federal parliament – Akpabio was not subtle about the fact that under his watch, the line of oversight between the Executive and the Legislature could become almost nonexistent.

When the President came to present the 2024 Appropriation Bill, the lawmakers replaced the national anthem with the campaign song of President Tinubu, “On Your Mandate, We Shall Stand.” The National Assembly, under the leadership of Akpabio, appeared to have positioned itself to work in close tandem with the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.

By opting to stand on the President’s mandate, the 10th National Assembly seemed to have effectively vacated its constitutional role as a check on the Executive. In addition to legislating, the Legislature is responsible for guaranteeing that the Executive acts according to the rule of law and is transparent and accountable in its behavior.

At a press conference on June 25, 2026, Prince Adeyemi claimed that Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President, was given N400 million through an intermediary and then asked for an additional N200 million to facilitate his appointment as Director of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

Adeyemi also told the Chief of Staff he rejected a request for 48 per cent of the N27.4 billion take-off grant proposed for the PFIPC.

Reacting to the Chief of Staff’s denial of the existence of the council, Adeyemi said he was dismayed that Gbajabiamila could make a “disclaimer distancing the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President from the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), alongside the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).

He said: “My name’s been swept into this storm. I reject any move to reduce this to mere denials without answering the fundamental questions that Nigerians are now posing.

The problem is not personalities any more. I think it’s about contradictions that demand answers.

It is derisory to hear the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila claim that he does not know about the existence of the agency as in the real world he should cover his face in shame.

“If Femi Gbajabiamila, who is supposed to be the Chief of Staff to the President and also the administrative gateway to the Presidency can make such an administrative error by allowing the President to sign a document containing a fake agency, he should possibly resign his appointment now.

The National Assembly also came under fire after the chief executive of the disputed council asked, “How did the name of the agency find its way into the 2026 Appropriation Bill on pages 50 and 51? If the agency is not in existence but has found its way into the Nigerian national budget, it means the entire 2026 appropriation budget is fraudulent and should be thrown away.

The Chief of Staff to the President, in his denial which has been published in various national dailies, is now saying that our 109 distinguished senators, among whom are seasoned administrators, former governors and diverse professional experts, were incompetent to detect the fake agency in the national budget.

What this means is our 360 House members are just rubber stamps, as has been rumored. This is not a matter of emotions. It is procedural because the national budget is not presented in isolation. It goes through many layers of technical drafting, executive coordination, ministerial inputs, Budget Office scrutiny and finally, legislative scrutiny by both chambers of the National Assembly…”

Ex-SGF queries how fake agency operated without executive’s knowledge
FORMER Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), David Babachir Lawal has challenged the claims that a government agency could be operating in the federal bureaucracy without the knowledge of the executive.

“It is not normal for any organisation to be a government agency without going through the laid down administrative processes,” Lawal said.

“If you’re asking me whether an agency of government can function without executive input, I don’t know how it can be done, because all those agencies report to the Office of the Secretary to the Government. The Secretary to Government signs letters of appointment. The Office of the Secretary to the Government furnishes offices to MDAs.

“So I don’t know this government and their own style is different. But when I was there all appointment letters were signed by the SGF after the approval of the President. The President approves and directs you to sign the letters. “They come to the agencies, they come to you, they ask for office allocation and you allocate the office and so on and so forth.”

On whether the National Assembly could approve budgetary provisions without knowing whether such agencies existed, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, explained that budgets are first compiled by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and presented by the Budget Office at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and later defended by the MDAs.

“Normally, the budgets are all lumped under the minister supervising them and then he comes to defend them. Many MDAs defend their budgets before the Minister of Budget and Planning before it even gets there.

So, there are processes. I do not know how it can be done without the SGF knowing or the Federal Executive Council knowing. After every MDA has defended the budget before the Budget Office, the President forwards the budget to the National Assembly for approval by the Federal Executive Council.

“When you see a line in the budget and you don’t see an owner, you begin to question. But this is a different government. Their whole style is different. I don’t know how they do it.

Lawal said the President has the power to award contracts without the input of the National Assembly, but such contracts must be backed by appropriated funds.

This government, their way of doing things is different. The President is the Executive President. I don’t know what he can do. “The National Assembly is not involved in the award of contracts. What happens is, if the President awards a contract that has no money appropriated for it, that is an impeachable offense in the government I served in. But I don’t know now,” he said.

Atiku wants independent probe, says Presidency’s defence self-indicting
The African Democratic Congress’ Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has described the Presidency’s response to allegations against the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, over the scandalous activities of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and its DG, Adeniyi Adeyemi as self-indicting.

Atiku said this in a statement issued by his spokesman, Phrank Shaibu, yesterday.

“The presidency’s frantic efforts to explain the scandal of the so-called PFIPC have unintentionally revealed a more disturbing truth under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration,” Atiku said.

He said the response of the presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, was not a defence of the government but a public confession of institutional collapse.

He said the allegations were too serious to be swept under the carpet and called for an urgent investigation of all the parties involved, including the Central Bank of Nigeria and the National Assembly.

“There is an African proverb that says that ‘the man who points at the moon should not have blood on his finger.’ A government cannot claim to be exposing fraud while struggling to explain how that same fraud found its way to the very heart of the Nigerian state.

What the presidency meant as damage control has become self-incrimination. Instead of extinguishing the fire, it has shown how much the flames have gnawed at the foundations of governance.

“The Presidency would now have Nigerians to accept that one private citizen, on his own, forged presidential documents, impersonated senior government officials, set up an office inside the Federal Secretariat, allegedly opened dozens of bank accounts, including accounts with government identities, hosted foreign ambassadors without diplomatic clearance, got official recognition in several government circles and almost embedded a phantom agency into the machinery of government, all without the help of any insider. That explanation requires more faith than the scandal itself.

“There’s another African proverb that’s just as timeless: ‘When termites eat a tree from the inside, it looks perfect until the first storm comes.’ The false agency scandal is that storm. What Nigerians have witnessed is not just the unmasking of an alleged impostor but the unmasking of institutions that have been hollowed out over years of negligence, incompetence and impunity.

More troubling is the glaring contradiction that the presidency has failed to explain.

“On the one hand it says that PFIPC never existed and was nothing but a complex scam. On the other hand, public records reportedly show that the same council was allocated approximately N1.3 billion in the 2026 Appropriation Act, along with the Presidential Economic Advisory Council.

“The contradiction is too big to ignore.

“If the agency was fictional, who wrote the budget estimates with its name on them? Who sent them to what department? Who were the officials who defended these estimates before the National Assembly? What committees did they go to? Who voted for them? Who put the “appropriate” in the appropriation bill? And who signed that budget into law?”

He said: “So we are calling for a genuinely independent investigation which follows the evidence where it leads. No sacred cows here. No political immunity. No justice for some.”

Afenifere: FG can’t investigate itself, demands independent probe
THE Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, loyalist of the late Chief Ayo Adebanjo, yesterday, said it had little confidence in the Federal Government’s readiness to probe allegations against the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, insisting that the administration “cannot investigate itself.”

The group was also joined by anti-corruption campaigners and civic organisations who called for an independent, transparent and evidence-based investigation into the allegations, warning that any attempt to ignore or suppress the issue could damage public confidence in the government’s anti-corruption credentials.

Speaking to The Guardian in his personal capacity on the matter, the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Prince Justice Faloye said the allegations against Gbajabiamila were not surprising, alleging that they followed a pattern of misconduct.

Faloye alleged that the Chief of Staff had become “the face of corruption” in the President Bola Tinubu’s administration and insisted that Nigerians should not expect a credible investigation from the Federal Government.

He charged that “the Chief of Staff would not have the nerve to do these things without the support of powerful interests within the system.”

He said there is no serious investigation to be done within the government unless there is pressure from civil society organisations, the media and other accountability institutions on the government.

He said the only way it could be done was through relentless public scrutiny and advocacy to compel the authorities to institute a credible and transparent probe into the allegations.

Debo Adeniran, Chairman of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) also reacted, calling on the government to probe the allegations in the interest of transparency, accountability and rule of law.

He cautioned that shielding the Chief of Staff from investigation could be counterproductive, and advised against treating allegations as proof of guilt.

Adeniran said the allegations deserve serious attention but due process must be allowed to run its course.
“There have been some allegations around the development. But mere allegations are not enough. If someone thinks someone was involved, then they need to provide credible evidence.

“The responsibility of law enforcement agencies is to carry out an investigation with due diligence, impartiality and transparency. The bottom line question is: what’s the evidence? Are there documents or physical evidence or credible witnesses who can substantiate the allegations?“he asked.

He stressed that every accused person is innocent until proven guilty, no matter what office he holds.

“If there are investigations going on, the authorities should collect all the evidence they can get, including eyewitness testimony where appropriate, and let the facts speak for themselves.”

“Where there is enough evidence, the law should be allowed to take its course. Where there is no such thing, no one should be tried by public opinion.

Some have alleged the government is trying to influence or suppress the process. Such claims should also be looked into. “The investigation should remain open, transparent and evidence-based so that the truth can come out and justice can be done,” he added.

In a similar vein, the Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum called on President Tinubu’s administration not to sweep the allegations under the carpet, even as it asked for a holistic review of alleged irregularities in the budgeting process.

“The allegations of bribery for appointments and demands for kickbacks raise serious questions that should be independently investigated,” said Akin Malaolu, President of the forum in a statement.

The forum acknowledged that Gbajabiamila had denied the allegations, describing them as false and politically motivated, but stressed that the matter should not be resolved with mere denials.

It called on the Federal Government to investigate the allegations in the national interest and prosecute those found culpable after due process.

The forum further implored the President to ensure thorough investigations into allegations of budget padding and fraudulent insertions into federal budgets, warning that any manipulation of the nation’s budget is a betrayal of public trust and will not be tolerated.

Lawyers Ask Probe, Say Scandal Is Institutional Failure
Reacting, the Convener, Security Situation Room, Mr Douglas Ogbankwa said: “The whole thing is a shame to the country.

“It is unheard of that an agency functioning from the Federal Secretariat is fake, he said.

‘I have once or twice been to the Federal Secretariat in my life.

They won’t let you into the structure if you don’t know who you are.

“So, apart from identifying yourself, you must tell them exactly where you are going and who you want to see before they can give you access to the Federal Secretariat. It is in the Three Arms Zone, which is like the green zone of the Federal Government.

“Now imagine someone taking space in the Federal Secretariat, putting the portrait of the President, his own portrait, the coat of arms and the national flag,” he asked.

Ogbankwa said it is not easy for ambassadors to be hosted without a recommendation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saying that Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi had the contacts to be involved in those indicated.

He also wondered how the agency got into the national budget and also got Gazetted by the federal government.

“So they need to stop the bullshit. I think Gbajabiamila should go.

“There are certain things, when you start talking to some of us, you make us feel like we’re fools. We are not stupid. The fact is that he has been caught red-handed,” he said, urging the actors to stop weaving wrong narratives to divert attention.

He said taking Adeyemi to court is not a problem, but the people involved in the scandal should be identified, investigated and also sanctioned.

He said they were making frantic efforts to sweep the incident under the carpet, warning that a judicial panel of enquiry should be inaugurated to unravel the truth about the incident.

He said: “If an agency can set up 34 bank accounts, set up nine accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria and can have the Central Bank of Nigeria credited with over N1 billion, it should not be a fake agency.

“They have to get out of the way. Bummer. No country in the world will take us seriously with this kind of thing going on.

“This is a state, not a children’s play. “The role of a state is not a joke, even if you don’t know what you do.

If this is true then there are other fake agencies in the government not known to the public and those involved should hide their faces in shame, the lawyer said.

Abubakar Sani, a Kano-based lawyer, said the scandal was an inside job.

He called it a “conspiracy” of all the relevant agencies (at all levels).

They were compromised. You scratch my back… All in breach of their oaths of office under the Constitution (7th Schedule).

Otherwise it would have been quite impossible to execute with such impudence and immunity,” he said.

The senior lawyer said law enforcement and regulatory agencies such as the ICPC, EFCC and the Code of Conduct Bureau had questions to answer for sleeping on their beat.

He asked, “Will they dare to tread on the very big toes obviously involved? Will they give names? Who are the guilty parties in the system? Who would dare to blow the whistle on them?

“There are more questions than answers in the scandal, clearly. Nigerians are watching and waiting. “Maybe another public interest suit by SERAP (or perhaps an application under FOI) will be the impetus before a semblance of action is taken.”

A Lagos-based lawyer, Mr Stephen Azubuike, who also lamented the unprecedented level of corruption in the ranks of various government agencies, said it makes ugly stories like this believable.

“During a thorough check of this fraudulent scheme, the role of accomplices in the system, who carefully ensured the success of the well-orchestrated criminal venture, will certainly be revealed,” he said.

“With all we have seen in this country, from loads of cash taking lease of apartments to wild animals swallowing funds, the story of Adeyemi Adeniyi is one of those stories, we only wish were fairy tales. He said:

Ex-minister: Defence from Presidency raises more questions than it answers
Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has slammed the Presidency’s defence of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, over the alleged activities of Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, saying the official response left many critical questions unanswered.

Dalung was responding to a statement by Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga, who tried to clear Gbajabiamila of any involvement in the matter.

Dalung said that despite the attempt by the Presidency to exonerate the Chief of Staff, the explanation was indicative of what he called huge gaps in government oversight.

He explained that irrespective of the outcome of the ongoing court case involving Adeyemi, the Presidency still has an explanation to give to Nigerians on how a purported fictitious presidential agency operated within the government without being detected.

Dalung questioned how someone could allegedly establish a fake government agency, forge an appointment letter, operate from the Federal Secretariat, hire staff, interact with government institutions, meet with diplomats, and reportedly get a Central Bank of Nigeria account without attracting official attention.

He also voiced concern over reports that the alleged agency was in the national budget, noting that budget proposals go through various levels of scrutiny by the executive and legislative branches before they are approved.

“If the council was fake, tell us how it was in the budget,” Dalung asked.

He said the Presidency did not explain who initiated the budget provision, who processed it and who approved it during the budget process.

He further queried how the office space was allegedly obtained at the Federal Secretariat and which authority approved the allocation and why the operation was not discovered earlier.

He also said the Presidency nominated Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola, who investigators are said to have identified as the man Prince Adeyemi Adeyemi said helped him to procure the purportedly forged appointment letter before he was said to have died in a hotel fire days before his arrest.

Dalung asked whether the investigators had thoroughly examined the circumstances of Tanimola’s death, including whether there had been an autopsy, coroner’s inquest or whether there had been a forensic analysis of his communications and financial records.

However, Dalung said while the allegations against Adeyemi were now before the court, accountability should not be limited to the prosecution of one person.

He also said the government must explain how its institutions allegedly interacted with, or failed to detect, what the Presidency now calls a fictitious agency.

Dalung called on the Presidency to release documentary evidence, timelines and official records related to the alleged inclusion of the agency in the national budget, its alleged operation within the Federal Secretariat and the apparent failure of institutional safeguards.

CISLAC calls for transparency in the investigation of PFIPC saga
THE Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has called for an independent investigation into the alleged activities of Adeniyi Adeyemi, saying the controversy exposes serious institutional failures that threaten public confidence in government.

The statement signed by the Executive Director, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said the organisation was worried that Adeyemi operated for years under the guise of heading the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. The statement alleged Adeyemi operated government offices, bank accounts, employed staff, and interacted with several public institutions before being declared an impostor.

The CISLAC stated that should the allegations be verified, the scandal extends beyond an individual and indicates a wide breakdown in administrative controls, due diligence and institutional oversight. It called on the Presidency to facilitate an open and independent investigation into the roles or lack thereof of all agencies and officials who allegedly aided the operation.

The organisation also called for a forensic audit of all accounts and transactions relating to the alleged councils, a review of the procedures governing presidential committees and advisory bodies and sanctions against any public official found to have facilitated or failed to prevent the alleged misconduct. Such incidents should not happen in future and probe should be used to improve governance systems, it said.

Analyst questions PFIPC’s N1.3 billion budget allocation
A PUBLIC affairs commentator, Walter Ononuju Nnadi, has questioned an apparent contradiction between the position of the Presidency and the 2026 Appropriation Act on the existence of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

“The issue raises concerns about transparency, budget accountability and public trust,” Nnadi argued.

He stated that on the 11th of June 2026, the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, had said that the PFIPC does not exist under the administration of President Bola Tinubu and warned the public to beware of anyone doing business with it.

But Nnadi pointed to the 2026 Appropriation Act which listed the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council under the Presidency with an allocation of about N1.3 billion inclusive of personnel, overhead and capital expenditure.

For him, this discrepancy raises questions as to whether there is an error in the budget or whether the council exists in a certain official capacity despite the disclaimer from the Presidency.

Nnadi also referred to the claims by Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi that the council has official accounts, office space and approved personnel, adding that such claims are worthy of independent verification by the relevant government agencies.

“He urged the Presidency and the Budget Office to make a clear statement on the issue, adding that the resolution of the matter is critical to deepening public confidence in government budgeting and accountability processes.