The Senate is expected to address the controversy surrounding the ₦1.3 billion allocation to the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) in the 2026 Appropriation Act when lawmakers resume plenary on Tuesday, Naijaonpoint reports.
Reports revealed how a forged appointment letter bearing the falsified signature of the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, allegedly slipped through bureaucratic checks, enabling Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew to secure office space at the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja and operate the controversial council with the appearance of official government backing for more than a year.
Multiple Presidency and civil service sources familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations, said the alleged fraud succeeded due to failures in the Budget Office, the House of Representatives and the Civil Service Headquarters.
According to them, proper scrutiny of the appointment letter could have prevented the controversy from escalating.
The PUNCH gathered that despite receiving a N1.3bn allocation, neither Adeyemi nor any official of the council appeared before the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service to defend the proposed budget.
A National Assembly source told the media platform on Sunday that the allocation was introduced through what the source described as a backdoor process.
“It was not brought in as a stand-alone item. It was done collectively with others that came in directly from the Presidency. So there was no defence or oversight.
“But I understand the Senate leadership will address the controversy on Tuesday to douse the growing tension and alleged complicity by any of its presiding officers,” the Punch quoted the official as saying.
Presidency sources maintained that the entire controversy stemmed from an invalid appointment letter allegedly forged in the name of the Chief of Staff.
One source explained that appointments into agencies under the Presidency are constitutionally approved by the President, while appointment letters are issued by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
“The mistake came from several areas, the House of Representatives, the Head of Service, the Budget Office. Most of them did not do due diligence. But you see where you can’t readily blame all of them is what we call grundnorm. There is a foundation. The appointment letter was fake. It was invalid.
“In government, the way it runs is that it is the President, not the Chief of Staff, who appoints. The letter of appointment is then issued by the SGF,” the source said.
The official further explained that every appointment under President Bola Tinubu follows an established constitutional process.
“Everyone who has ever been appointed by this President passed through a specific process. If your parastatal is directly under the Presidency, the SGF makes a memo to the President and the President approves the memo.
“The SGF then issues you a letter of appointment. For those in ministries, he minutes it to the relevant minister, who minutes it to the Permanent Secretary, who then gives it to the appointee. With that letter, you can enter the government payroll.
“The Chief of Staff has never appointed anyone at that level. All DGs and Permanent Secretaries, their appointments are from the President.”
A senior civil servant familiar with the investigation said Adeyemi allegedly exploited weaknesses in the verification process by presenting a forged appointment letter.
“Where Adeniyi scammed everyone was that he forged a letter with the signature of the Chief of Staff, which was not even his signature because it was forged. It was not Gbajabiamila’s signature. The Chief of Staff cannot make such an appointment.
“Adeniyi took that fake letter, falsely signed by Gbajabiamila, to the civil service headquarters and said ‘please refer to my appointment letter attached.’ He arranged his terms of reference where he stated that he needed an office.
“The problem is, the President’s letter to the SGF or minister is not usually attached to such documentation, you are just expected to attach the appointment letter. But they were supposed to know that the Chief of Staff doesn’t appoint anyone. That was the loophole,” the source said.
The official said obtaining office space at the Federal Secretariat gave the council significant credibility.
“Once you have an office there, it confers a very high level of legitimacy on you. You can meet big guests there. He had a letterhead and even a website. Once he established that office at the Federal Secretariat, every other thing followed. Nobody tried to do the needful anymore until someone raised the alarm, ” the official noted.
Although the office was later sealed after Adeyemi’s arrest and reassigned, the source claimed he continued operating elsewhere.
“The man was still running the scam after he left the secretariat, but he doesn’t use that place anymore.”
Another Presidency official disclosed that the alleged fraud first came to light after officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission noticed that the council was performing functions similar to theirs.
