The detained Director-General of the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), Prince Adeniyi Matthew Adeyemi, has denied acting alone in the establishment and operations of the council, insisting that several top government institutions officially recognised and supported the agency before it was disowned by the Presidency.<\/p>\n
Adeyemi, through his legal team led by Festus Akhigbe, described attempts to portray him as the sole architect of the council as misleading, arguing that the PFIPC’s administrative history reflected extensive institutional involvement across the Federal Government.<\/p>\n
His reaction comes amid ongoing investigations by the House of Representatives and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) into the legality of the council, which the Presidency recently declared was never created by any law, executive order or presidential directive.<\/p>\n
In a statement released on Sunday, Adeyemi appealed to the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the matter to grant him administrative clearance to personally appear before lawmakers, maintaining that any report produced without hearing his testimony would be incomplete.<\/p>\n
According to him, the council did not operate in isolation but received official recognition from key government institutions.<\/p>\n
His legal team claimed that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation acknowledged official documentation relating to the PFIPC and facilitated office allocation within the Federal Secretariat.<\/p>\n
They further alleged that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria acted on official documents by issuing administrative budget codes, granting self-accounting status, posting federal civil servants to the council and opening operational bank accounts.<\/p>\n
The lawyers also stated that the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation approved the council’s establishment structure and granted recruitment waivers that enabled the engagement of 314 personnel<\/strong>.<\/p>\n According to the statement, the Budget Office of the Federation and the National Assembly also processed documents that led to the inclusion of \u20a61.302 billion<\/strong> for the PFIPC in the 2026 Appropriation Act<\/strong>, which was eventually signed into law by President Bola Tinubu.<\/p>\n The legal team further alleged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission allocated office space to the council, requested a \u20a6300 million<\/strong> processing consideration and later presented a plaque of recognition to its leadership.<\/p>\n Questioning the narrative that Adeyemi single-handedly created the council, the lawyers said:<\/p>\n “If these documents were crude forgeries, how did the central administrative engine of the Federal Government act upon them?”<\/p>\n They added:<\/p>\n “It is an administrative impossibility for an unassisted individual to mislead multiple agencies of the Federal Government.”<\/p>\n The defence team argued that Adeyemi was instead being sacrificed to conceal broader institutional failures within the federal bureaucracy.<\/p>\n “Our client is being made a scapegoat to cover up deep-seated institutional lapses, procedural breakdowns and internal approvals within the government structure,” the statement said.<\/p>\n They urged the House committee, chaired by Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, to allow Adeyemi appear in person to present his account before concluding its investigation.<\/p>\n “Any investigative outcome or final legislative report produced without affording our client a direct hearing would be fundamentally flawed, incomplete and a breach of the constitutional right to fair hearing (audi alteram partem),” the lawyers stated.<\/p>\n “To reach a definitive conclusion, the committee must examine not only institutional witnesses but also the primary subject at the centre of this controversy.”<\/p>\n The controversy surrounding the PFIPC intensified after the Presidency publicly distanced itself from the council, declaring that it had no legal foundation despite operating publicly as a federal agency.<\/p>\n Before it was disowned, the council reportedly operated from the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, engaged government institutions and foreign investors and secured about \u20a61.3 billion<\/strong> in the 2026 national budget.<\/p>\n The Presidency subsequently directed the ICPC to investigate the establishment, funding and operations of the council, while the House of Representatives launched a parallel probe to determine how it obtained official recognition and budgetary allocation despite allegedly lacking legal backing.<\/p>\n Appearing before lawmakers during the investigation, Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, maintained that the Budget Office merely processed submissions based on existing administrative records and did not create the PFIPC.<\/p>\n The outcome of the ongoing investigations is expected to determine how the council operated within the federal system and whether any public officials who facilitated its activities will be held accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"