Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has cleared the Presidency of any involvement in the appointment of the purported Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi and creation of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council.
ICPC said the appointment letter presented by Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew was forged and did not originate from the State House.
Chairman of the anti-graft agency, Musa Adamu Aliyu, disclosed this after submitting the interim report of the commission’s investigation to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to him, “The ICPC discovered that Adeyemi also created two additional fictitious government agencies, apart from the one that is known in the public domain. Our investigation unraveled two other fake government agencies, namely FCT Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA) and Foreign Investment Promotion Agency and Public Private Partnership (FIPA-PPP).”
Tinubu had, on July 7, directed the ICPC to investigate the activities of the council and submit its findings within 30 days.
Aliyu said investigations established that Adeyemi “was never appointed by the Federal Government or any authority of government.”
Aliyu added that the council “was never established by any law, executive order or other valid instrument of government.”
He said Adeyemi appropriated the identity of the defunct Presidential Economic Advisory Council, illegally occupied its office and used forged government documents to carry out the activities of the fake agency.
He also said investigators discovered that the office used by the fake council was unlawfully accessed after its lock was broken.
Recall that while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee that investigated the PFIPC, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had acknowledged granting official administrative approvals to the ‘phantom’ council based on documents allegedly later found to be forged.
On July 29, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Esther Walson-Jack, told the committee that her office issued an “authorised establishment” and a recruitment waiver after receiving what was purported to be the council’s establishment Act and the appointment letter of its Director-General.
ICPC chairman said it was also established that no Federal Government funds were approved or disbursed to the agency.
“Our investigation found that weaknesses in verification, inter-agency oversight and government processes were exploited by Adeyemi with some level of negligence,” he said.
State House on Thursday distanced itself from the PFIPC, telling the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee investigating the ‘phantom’ council that it neither created it nor initiated any correspondence relating to its budget.
Permanent Secretary, State House, represented by the Director of Administration, Abdulkadir Idris, said the Presidency had no knowledge of the council until reports about it surfaced in the media.
Appearing before the committee, Idris said, “We did not send any correspondence or any request to the Office of the Accountant-General in respect of this council. We didn’t even know anything about this council. We never heard about it until we started seeing it in the media.
“It is not our statutory responsibility to seek approval or justification for the creation of the PFIPC.”
The committee had invited the Permanent Secretary over documents purportedly originating from the State House requesting the creation of a budget code for the council, which lawmakers suspected was instrumental to securing budgetary allocations for the organisation.
But Idris dismissed the documents as fake, insisting that neither the signatory nor the office indicated on the letters exists in the State House.
He specifically denied the existence of one Akande Adewale who allegedly signed the disputed correspondence as Director of Administration and Support Services.
“I am the Director of Administration in the State House. When the letter was shown to us, I saw it was signed in November 2024. At that time, the Director of Administration was Mrs. Aderonke Jaiyesimi, who retired in January 2025.
“I presented to the Nigeria Police the list of Directors of Administration in the State House from 2003 till date. There is no name resembling Akande Adewale in our records,” Idris said.
He further told lawmakers that the State House had no department known as the Directorate of Administration and Support Services.
Idris said he and the Permanent Secretary were invited by the Nigeria Police National Cybercrime Centre after the controversy broke, where they presented official records to aid ongoing investigations.
During the hearing, the committee’s chairman, Yusuf Gagdi, confronted the witness with copies of letters allegedly written by the State House to the Accountant-General requesting a budget code for the PFIPC.
He said another letter from the Accountant-General’s Office appeared to acknowledge the request and bore a handwritten receipt stamp purportedly from the State House.
But Idris maintained that neither he nor the Permanent Secretary received such correspondence.
“We are not in possession of any such documents. We did not write those letters, and we did not receive any response of that nature,” he insisted.
He noted that appointments of directors-general of federal agencies are political appointments processed through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), not the State House.
We approved 7 number plates to PFIPC – FRSC
The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Shehu Mohammed, on Thursday told the House’s ad-hoc committee that following the ongoing investigation, the FRSC had commenced the process of retrieving all the official number plates allocated to the PFIPC.
Mohammed said the FRSC issued seven official government number plates to the council after following what it believed were established verification procedures.
He explained that the application was accompanied by documents purportedly showing that the organisation had been legally established.
“Our standard operating procedure requires every ministry, department or agency requesting official government number plates to submit a formal application, after which we verify the authenticity of the request before approval,” he said.
He said the request was received in April 2025 from an office described as the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and was supported with establishment documents and a list of chassis numbers for the vehicles.
“As part of the verification process, our officials visited the office address presented to us and found it operational. Based on the documents and the verification carried out, we approved seven official government number plates,” he said.
“We have already begun administrative processes to retrieve all the official government vehicle number plates issued to the agency and have strengthened our internal verification mechanism to prevent a recurrence,” he said.
The chairman of the committee, Gagdi, questioned the credibility of the documents relied upon by the FRSC, pointing out that the purported mandate of the council carried no official federal government insignia or security features.
Gagdi also noted that the document listed President Tinubu, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and several serving ministers as members of the council’s board, describing the composition as suspicious.
“Does this look normal to you?” the chairman asked.
Responding, the Corps Marshal, responded: “It does not”,admitting that the document should have raised concerns.
Mohammed also confirmed that the seven vehicles registered for the council were brand new vehicles that had not previously existed in the FRSC database.
He admitted that the PFIPC case had exposed weaknesses in the agency’s verification process, describing it as an isolated incident from which the commission had learnt valuable lessons.
“This is the first time we have encountered a case like this. It is now an experience for us, and we are strengthening our intelligence and verification processes so that it will never happen again,” he said.
