By Obike Ukoh
The case of Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi is now well known globally. He was the Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).
As a result of the current controversy surrounding the PFIPC, it was dubbed a fake agency.
The worry now is that everything is on the head of Adeyemi. The prominent character he mentioned, the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila is walking freely, while Adeyemi is a candidate for criminal prosecution.
An analyst said that Adeyemi must be a spirit to procure all the documents that enabled him to secure an office at the federal secretariat, open an account with the Central Bank of Nigeria, among others.
In its interim report, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said that Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi forged documents, falsely presented himself as Director-General of the PFIPC, created additional agencies, opened bank accounts with forged instruments and exploited weaknesses within government institutions.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) said the interim report submitted by the ICPC “appears to answer only the easiest questions, while carefully avoiding the more fundamental issues that continue to disturb millions of Nigerians.’’
In a statement by the group’s national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, noted that from the very day this unprecedented scandal broke, HURIWA warned that there was a real danger that the investigation would end with the prosecution of a single individual, while leaving untouched the powerful interests, institutional failures and possible collaborators that enabled one of the most embarrassing infiltrations of Nigeria’s governmental architecture in recent history.
‘`The questions confronting Nigeria are neither difficult nor complicated. How did a non-existent government agency acquire the aura of official legitimacy? Who admitted its operators into government circles? `Who authorised meetings, endorsements and engagements with public institutions?’’
“Who enabled the agency to function openly without challenge?
“How did an organisation later described by the Presidency itself as non-existent find its way into the 2026 Appropriation Act with a budgetary allocation running into billions of naira?
“These are the questions Nigerians expected the ICPC to confront directly.’’
HURIWA insists that every individual against whom credible evidence emerges, irrespective of office or political proximity, is subjected to the same standard of justice.
On its part, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said the ICPC report failed to explain how a fictitious agency allegedly secured federal office space, had civil servants deployed to it and found its way into the 2026 budget with a N1.3 billion provision.
“It would be recalled that when President Bola Tinubu directed the ICPC to investigate this case, ADC had waived it off, insisting instead on a full investigation by an independent panel.
“ With the so-called interim report of the ICPC, our fears have come to pass as the report is not only predictable; it appears more concerned with exonerating government officials rather than providing clear answers to the serious questions that the scandal has raised.
“The ICPC report appeared to have given the impression that what happened was mere failure in government processes or procedures.
“This position is difficult to sustain in the light of publicly available evidence, which establishes that this is not an error of omission or a mere glitch in the system.
“Instead, what happened was a grand scam that could have been possible only with the active connivance of government officials and institutions at the highest level.
“The ICPC report also comes gravely short by suggesting that there could be accomplices within government, but mentioned none.
“Yet, an agency that was able to recommend only Adeyemi for prosecution on the basis of an investigation that the commission itself has tagged as either on-going or inconclusive.
“ If all that the commission had to present was a preliminary report, why not simply present it as confidential brief to the President instead of making a public drama of it in a manner that potentially prejudiced the overall investigation and cast Adeyemi as the principal culprit?” ADC pointed out.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, also rejected what he called “lone wolf’’ theory, insisting that the insiders should be named.
Atiku, who reacted to the ICPC’s interim report through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the Presidency cannot present the report as an exoneration when it reportedly admits to “negligence and connivance” within government processes.
According to the findings referenced by Atiku, an individual allegedly forged a presidential appointment letter, created a fictitious federal agency, took over offices of the former Presidential Economic Advisory Council, opened bank accounts with forged legislative instruments, and created two additional fake government agencies.
“Yet Nigerians are being told that State House systems were ‘above board.’
“Both claims cannot comfortably coexist,” Atiku said.
“If there was connivance, who connived? If public officers were negligent, who are they? “Who granted access to government offices? Who recognised this supposed Director-General? Who enabled him to operate within the machinery of government?”
Continuing, Atiku stressed that: “A fake agency does not walk into government offices by itself. “A forged appointment letter does not validate itself. Bank accounts do not open themselves. “Behind every door that opened, every process that was bypassed and every official instrument that was accessed was a human being. Name them.”
Atiku said the ICPC interim report appeared to shield “shadow operatives within the presidency who allegedly connived to enable the fraud” and demanded that their identities be made public.
“The Presidency must not attempt to block, gag, or shield anyone connected to this matter. What is the presidency afraid of?”
Atiku warned that anything short of transparency would deepen suspicions that powerful interests are being protected.
“You cannot admit negligence and connivance within government and simultaneously pronounce the system spotless. That is like washing charcoal and expecting white water,” he said.
The former vice-president also queried: “Who inside the Villa opened the door?”
An analyst also queried, “How did an organisation with government offices, civil servants and a line in Nigeria’s national budget turn out to have no legal basis for existing?’’
Babachir Lawal, who served as Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SFG) under Muhammadu Buhari, who spoke on the issue, said the SFG Office assigns agencies their space and status.
“There’s no way [that office] in a normal system would not know that the agency is fake,” he told an international media organization.
“You cannot create a budget code for yourself without the budget office knowing. There must be connivance with officials within.”
His conclusion was blunt: “You must have officials within the system who will validate your corrupt behaviour.”
Oluseun Onigbinde reaches a similar view by a different route.
He co-founded BudgIT, a Nigerian transparency group that first drew attention to the council’s funding.
He pointed out that the PFIPC did not appear in the budgets for 2023, 2024 or 2025, but surfaced – fully formed and with its own budget code – in 2026.
“This agency actually emanated and found itself in the budget from the executive,” he said – meaning it came from within the president’s own side of government, not from parliament. “The functional head of the agency cannot just do that alone. It has to come from the State House [the president’s office].”
Onigbinde listed the checks a genuine agency must go through: an office in the federal secretariat, sign-off from the civil service, a budget code, and a multi-step approval to open a bank account.
“I don’t know how you go through all these tracks, and you still come out at the end and say this agency is fake,” he said.
“The government just has to be honest about who exactly the people involved are.”
Obike Ukoh, Former Deputy Editor-In-Chief, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
