CNPP Urges Tinubu Government To Remove Top Officials Over Alleged Fake Agency

The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has called for the sack of top Government Officials and resignation of President Bola Tinubu over alleged mishandling of Multi-Billion Naira ‘Fake Agency’ scandal, stating that Nigeria is not a Banana Republic:

Besides, the CNPP said the group watched with deep shock, profound disappointment and mounting national embarrassment the unfolding scandal surrounding the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an agency now publicly described by the Presidency as “fake” or “fictitious” despite its inclusion in the 2026 Appropriation Acts signed into law by President Tinubu.

“What should ordinarily have been a straightforward case of administrative correction has now snowballed into one of the greatest self-inflicted international embarrassment in Nigeria’s democratic history due to the incompetence and poor crisis management displayed by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government,” the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Comrade James Ezema said in a statement made available to Journalists in Kaduna.

“The CNPP says unequivocally that if Nigeria were a serious country with functioning institutions and a culture of accountability, heads of critical government agencies and top political appointees implicated by this scandal would have already resigned or been immediately relieved of their duties pending investigations,” he said.

Ezema said, “Nigerians were told that for months, one Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew allegedly ran a federal agency that did not exist; occupied office space within the Federal Secretariat, Abuja; allegedly held meetings with ambassadors and foreign nationals; corresponded with government institutions; and allegedly opened bank accounts including one with the Central Bank of Nigeria, all in the name of being the Director-General of the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.”

He said the matter became more disturbing when documents emerged showing that this same “non-existent” agency was captured in the 2026 Appropriation Act with over N1.3 billion in budgetary allocations, including funds for salaries, allowances and even a proposed World Investment Summit.

He pointed out that “this is not merely a scandal; it is an indictment of the entire machinery of government”, and argued, “a federal budget does not write itself, budgetary allocations do not mysteriously descend from heaven, every line item in the national budget passes through rigorous bureaucratic and political processes.”

“The budget is prepared by the executive, scrutinised by the Federal Executive council chaired by the President, presented to the National Assembly by the President, debated and approved by lawmakers and eventually signed into law by the President”, the CNPP statement added.

Ezema further stressed that “therefore, the Federal Government cannot sign an Appropriation Act containing an agency in one breath and issue a press statement declaring the same agency fake, illegal or non-existent in another breath.”

He said, “Such conduct portrays Nigeria as a nation that neither understands nor respects its own laws and constitutional processes”.

The CNPP emphasized that “by virtue of its inclusion in the 2026 Appropriation Act and the presidential assent granted to that Act, the agency acquired legal recognition for the purpose of the budget year unless and until the relevant provisions of the law are amended or repealed by the National Assembly.”

“A government cannot invalidate an Act of Parliament through a press statement. No presidential aide has the constitutional power to cancel a law duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the president by mere public declaration. The Federal Government may decide to stop the operations of the agency or scrap it entirely but it cannot by law declare an agency contained in a subsisting Act of Parliament as “fake.” “To do so is to ridicule the National Assembly, undermine the sanctity of the country’s laws and project Nigeria before the international community as a Banana Republic where state institutions have collapsed”, the statement stressed.

“Even more embarrassing is the way this scandal has been handled. “A competent and responsible administration with effective crisis management mechanisms would have simply announced the scrapping of the agency, initiated an immediate investigation and transmitted an Executive Bill to the National Assembly seeking an amendment to the 2026 Appropriation Act to reflect the government’s decision”, the CNPP said.

“That would have been a display of leadership, responsibility and respect for constitutional processes. Rather, the APC-led Federal Government has taken a path that has embarrassed Nigeria internationally, amplified doubts about the country’s institutional credibility and further strengthened the already negative global perception of Nigeria as a corruption-prone nation,” the statement added.

“The international partners and foreign investors are now asking uncomfortable questions,” the group lamented. What other questionable entities are hidden in government finances if a supposedly non-existent agency can find its way into a signed federal budget? What does it say about Nigeria’s governance systems if an allegedly fictitious agency can secure office space within the Federal Secretariat and interface with key government institutions? “If a fake agency could even pass through the Budget Office, the Federal Executive Council, the National Assembly and get the presidential assent, where exactly are the safeguards that government always boasts about?

“These are questions of governance, not questions of opposition,” it said. The real scandal is not that one person is on trial. The real scandal is institutions’ failure. The real scandal is the incompetence of those who are in charge of the administration of the country. ”The real scandal is the web of officials whose acts and omissions supposedly legitimized an allegedly non-existent agency.

Consequently, the CNPP called for the following; immediate dismissal or resignation of all public officers whose actions and inactions facilitated this monumental national embarrassment, including:
. the President’s Chief of Staff,the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, if indeed an account was opened for a purported non-existent agency under the watch of the apex bank,relevant officials in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.appropriate officials in the Federation’s Budget Office, .members of the Federal Executive Council who reviewed and approved the budget proposal, ministers and heads of agencies that processed or dealt with documents concerning the agency and,principal officers and committee chairmen in the National Assembly who oversaw the budget process and failed to discover the alleged anomaly.

“The CNPP further states that should President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fail to immediately relieve these officials of their positions and commence a transparent process of accountability, then he must take full responsibility for this unprecedented governance failure and tender his resignation”, the statement stressed.