PFIPC Scandal: Head of Service Admits Blunders as Reps Expose Shady Approvals

By: Abudu Olalekan

Things got messier on Wednesday at the House of Representatives probe into the shadowy Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council. The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Didi Walson-Jack, sat before lawmakers and basically admitted it — her office dropped the ball. No proper due diligence. No thorough checks. Just approvals handed out based on documents that turned out to be pure fiction, Reportersroom reports.

And she wasn’t the only one with some explaining to do.

The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation also came under fire, pointing the finger at one of its own — a staff member accused of diverting an official letter that helped keep the whole scheme running.

At the centre of it all is Prince Adeyemi Adeniyi, the man who paraded himself as Director-General of the PFIPC. Investigators say he wrangled official recognition for the so-called agency using fake appointment letters, cooked-up legislative documents, and forged government records. The catch? The agency doesn’t even have any legal backing to begin with.

Now, the House committee is trying to figure out how so many federal institutions processed and acted on these dodgy papers without raising a single red flag.

The Ad-Hoc Committee — which is also probing the alleged creation of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council without legal basis — said its findings so far reveal a tangled web. Fake appointment letters. Fabricated legislation. Fictitious offices. All of it stitched together by the promoters to trick federal institutions into granting them recognition.

The Accountant-General’s Office named Bello Abdullahi as the officer who allegedly diverted correspondence meant for the Permanent Secretary, State House. Meanwhile, Walson-Jack owned up to the fact that her office greenlit an authorised establishment and recruitment waiver for the phantom agency, relying on documents now known to be false.

The revelations came as the committee — chaired by Yusuf Gagdi, the lawmaker for Kanke/Kanam/Pankshin Federal Constituency of Plateau State — turned up the heat on how a non-existent agency somehow managed to walk into federal offices and walk out with official approvals.

Joshua Luka, Director of the Federal Project Financial Department at the OAGF, tried to explain how the fake agency ended up with an administrative code. He said his office received what looked like a legitimate request from the State House and deliberately routed the response to the Permanent Secretary — not the agency itself.

“As part of our due diligence, what we did was to convey the administrative code to the Permanent Secretary, State House, and not to the so-called agency. The idea was that if it was not genuine, the whole thing would be unravelled,” Luka said.

But the committee wasn’t buying it. Because the correspondence never got to the State House Permanent Secretary. Instead, it landed straight in Adeyemi’s hands.

Gagdi then dropped another bombshell. Investigations had confirmed that the Directorate of Administration and Support Services — the very office listed on the correspondence — doesn’t actually exist within the State House.

“There is no Directorate of Administration and Support Services in the State House. That office does not exist,” he said flatly.

He didn’t hold back either, slamming OAGF officials for letting a suspect stroll in and pick up a letter meant for another government office entirely.

“You allowed the fraudulent DG to come and pick the letter from your office instead of allowing someone from the Permanent Secretary’s office to receive it. If the letter had reached the Permanent Secretary, the fraud would have been unraveled immediately,” he said.

Luka pushed back, insisting the mess was caused by one person, not the whole system.

“The problem here was not an office lapse; it was an individual lapse. Somebody was supposed to deliver that letter to the Permanent Secretary, State House, and it was not delivered there,” he explained.

Pressed to name names, Luka pointed to Bello — who happened to be sitting right behind him in Hearing Room 028.

Bello admitted handing over the letter to Adeyemi. He tried to explain himself. Gagdi wasn’t having it and cut him off mid-sentence.

HoS admits failure

Then it was Walson-Jack’s turn. And she didn’t dance around it.

“We now, having seen all the facts and observed all the documents, concede that we ought to have carried out more due diligence in the discharge of the duties of the office in issuing an authorised establishment and a recruitment waiver to the PEAC/PFIPC,” she told the panel.

She explained that officials of the so-called agency showed up at the 2025 Annual Manpower Budget Defence, presenting themselves as reps of a newly established federal agency. They brought what looked like an Establishment Act and a letter appointing a Director-General.

According to her, standard civil service procedure requires newly established agencies wanting to recruit staff to submit an enabling Act, the CEO’s appointment letter and other supporting documents before any authorised establishment or provisional recruitment waiver is granted.

Her office processed the request based on what was on the table. She called the incident unprecedented — something the civil service had never seen before.

“In over almost a century of the Federal Civil Service, we have never encountered a situation like the current one. Criminals always try to be a step ahead of law enforcement,” she said.

But under sharper questioning, Walson-Jack admitted that the so-called Establishment Act was clearly not legit.

“I requested to see the documents myself and I saw that the Establishment Act was not really an authentic Act. I have almost 30 years of legal practice experience and immediately I saw it, I knew it was not real,” she stated.

She also cast doubt on the letter supposedly issued by the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President appointing the phantom DG.

Asked to compare various documents signed by Femi Gbajabiamila with the letter appointing Adeyemi, the Head of Service admitted the signatures didn’t match.

“I’m not a forensic expert, but I can clearly see that the signatures are not the same,” she added.

Gagdi jumped in with more damning news — forensic experts from the Nigeria Police Force had already confirmed the signatures didn’t match those of the genuine signatory.

“The Police Forensic Department has already analysed the signatures and confirmed that those signatures are not the same. In fact, according to them, there was not even an attempt to imitate the signature,” Gagdi said.

Both the appointment letter and the so-called Establishment Act, he insisted, were straight-up fake.

“You have clearly stated that you acted on false documents. You have now established, just like we have, that the letter of appointment of the so-called DG is not only forged, it is fake.

“If something is forged, there will be an attempt to imitate the signature. But in this case, the signatures are completely different. So, I will not call it forged; I will say it is fake,” Gagdi declared.

The committee also noted that the document presented as an Act of the National Assembly was missing all the basic features of real legislation.

“Our Acts have citation numbers, Supreme Court numbers, Gazette numbers and Gazette titles. The Act presented here has none of those features,” the chairman added.

Even after admitting the failures, Walson-Jack stuck to her position that her officials had followed standard procedure based on what was handed to them.

“Everything was done in accordance with the practice in the office. Out of the 88 ministries, departments and agencies processed, we are really surprised that we were unable to detect that PEAC/PFIPC had actually given us a false Establishment Act and what has now been proved to be a false letter of appointment,” she added.

She promised her office would tighten things up going forward.

“We take full responsibility and we will definitely review our processes to make them more fraud-proof,” she said.

Adeyemi’s absence

Deputy Commissioner of Police Olufemi Akinola, Deputy Director of the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre, appeared on behalf of the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu.

On Monday, the committee had ordered Disu to bring Adeniyi Adeyemi before the panel by noon on Wednesday. That didn’t happen.

Akinola explained that Adeyemi couldn’t be produced because he was still in lawful custody under a subsisting court order.

“The Nigeria Police Force may not be able to produce the suspect as requested in view of the subsisting warrant. The Nigeria Police Force recognises the constitutional oversight powers of the National Assembly and remains committed to cooperating with the committee in the discharge of its mandate.

“However, in this case, it will be appreciated if a reproduction warrant could be sought from a court of competent jurisdiction to enable the police to comply with this request,” Akinola said.

The committee accepted the explanation and said it would take the necessary legal steps to get the right court order.

Tense proceedings

Wednesday’s sitting wasn’t exactly friendly. The exchanges between the committee and senior government officials got heated fast.

Gagdi ran the show — sometimes a little too tightly. He kept interrupting witnesses mid-response, and at one point, even shut down a fellow committee member trying to contribute.

Before the member could say a word, Gagdi banged the gavel. That was the end of that.

Several officials couldn’t even finish their explanations before being cut off.

The committee said it had wrapped up most of the fact-finding phase and would release preliminary findings to the public next week. The final report will go to the House of Representatives once lawmakers return from recess.

The House set up the Ad-Hoc Committee after allegations surfaced that the PFIPC and the PEAC were operating as federal agencies without any legal foundation whatsoever.

Earlier testimonies from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the OAGF, the Budget Office, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Police Force and other agencies all painted the same picture — the agency wormed its way into official recognition using documents investigators now believe were entirely fabricated.

The committee is expected to recommend both legislative and legal action against everyone involved in the alleged fraud, plus institutional reforms to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.