President Bola Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive forensic investigation into the scandal involving the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and other suspected fake agencies within the Federal Government.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed the directive on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja.
Oyedele said the President and the council acted after receiving updates on the investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, which uncovered additional fake agencies.
“That is to do with the fake agency that is called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. Mr President gave us the updates about the work the ICPC has done, and as a result of that, the council has directed that we commission a forensic investigation that will look into our processes, our procedures, internal control weaknesses that allow some of these things to happen, because the findings discovered that we indeed have additional fake agencies,” he said.
“What is important is to establish what went wrong, how it can be prevented, and going forward, how we can make our systems stronger.”
Oyedele said the Attorney-General of the Federation and his office had been directed to work with relevant agencies to address the matter across its administrative, accounting and governance dimensions.
The President also ordered the review to extend to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, or IPPIS, amid concerns that fake agencies could also point to the existence of fictitious workers on the federal payroll.
“Mr President directed that the review should extend to IPPIS, because if you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees,” Oyedele said.
“In a country where you would have seen Mr President doing everything to ensure we enhance payroll, salaries and wages, we can’t afford to have fake people hanging around. It undermines our ability to pay our people well, who are doing the hard work.”
Oyedele said ₦9.495 trillion in subsidy savings and incremental revenue had been committed to increased payments of salaries and allowances to civil servants, an amount he said exceeded the actual savings that accrued to the Federal Government from subsidy removal.
He said the government was determined to identify the failures that allowed a fictitious agency to operate within the federal system.
“So we don’t want to be further constrained by fake agencies and fake personnel. This is something we take very seriously, and the Nigerian people will get updates as we progress,” he said.
“It’s collective responsibility. Something went wrong. Someone managed, with whatever people they colluded with, to create a fake agency that had an office within the institution of the Federal Government.”
“They managed to register and obtain an administrative code as well as a TSA code. The only thing that didn’t happen was we didn’t pay any money to those accounts. But it’s gone too far to even get to that level. Now the idea is we want to find out what went wrong and strengthen the system.”
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the ICPC investigation found at least two additional fake agencies beyond the initially identified council.
“The President was informed that it is not just about the so-called Presidential Foreign Promotion Council and the fake DG that was there, but that there were at least two additional fake agencies that were in that process,” Idris said.
He said the President had directed the Attorney-General and the Finance Minister to jointly examine administrative and accounting systems and engage professional audit firms for a comprehensive forensic evaluation.
“So that we have a forensic, total evaluation of this system, with a view to plugging this once and for all, so we don’t have this national embarrassment again,” he said.
Idris cautioned that the problem may predate the current administration.
“I want you to know that this didn’t just happen now. This may date back longer than when the President was in office,” he said.
The controversy began after Adeniyi Adeyemi presented himself as the Director-General of the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, which operated from an office within the Federal Secretariat in Abuja.
Questions were later raised during an investigation by a House of Representatives ad hoc committee headed by Yusuf Gagdi over how an organisation without a legal foundation was able to function as a government agency and gain access to official processes.
The matter escalated following allegations that about ₦1.3 billion was allocated to the council in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
The House subsequently constituted an ad hoc committee to investigate how the purported agency was created, how it was included in the budget and whether government institutions or officials facilitated its operations.
Meanwhile, Oyedele said the Federal Executive Council approved the signing of Double Taxation Avoidance Treaties between Nigeria and Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania, and Nigeria and Switzerland.
“The overall objective of these treaties is to ensure that Nigeria can expand the opportunities available to our businesses to invest in other countries, and also for us to attract investment from those countries,” he said.
“We’re hoping that Nigeria can develop a very robust tax treaty network to compete with leading countries in Africa, like South Africa, which has over 60. But we’re making good progress.”
Oyedele also disclosed that the council approved a $1.25 billion financing facility from the International Development Association and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to support Nigeria’s Actions for Investment and Job Acceleration development policy financing.
“This is a concessional facility with repayments of about 30 years, which we are going to dedicate to helping accelerate job creation. If we have any priority as a country, this clearly has to be one of them,” he said.
Author
