House Panel: How Fake Agency Secured Budget Line in 2026 Appropriation Act

By Victor Idajil

The House committee investigating the phoney Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, PFIPC, wrapped up its public hearings yesterday with startling details of how the fake body got an administrative code and ended up in the 2026 budget.

Committee Chairman, Yusuf Gagdi, told lawmakers that investigations showed neither the “Director of Administration and Support Services” nor the person named “Akanbi Adewale” exists in the State House. He warned witnesses to stop dragging the State House into the matter.

“You people should not mention the State House in this matter,” Gagdi said.

The panel heard that the supposed Director-General of PFIPC, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew, personally went to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, OAGF, to collect a letter addressed to the Permanent Secretary, State House.

A former Director of Consolidated Accounts in OAGF, Joshua Luka, now Director of Federal Projects/Financial Management, told the committee his office received what looked like a legitimate request from the State House asking for an administrative code for the council. It was signed “for Permanent Secretary” by the said Akanbi Adewale.

As a safeguard, Luka said OAGF addressed the response containing the code to the Permanent Secretary, State House, not to PFIPC. The idea, he explained, was that if the request was fraudulent, the Permanent Secretary would spot it immediately.

But the letter never got there. Luka said he signed it on December 2, 2024, and then travelled to Tanzania with the Accountant-General, so he didn’t monitor delivery. He added that the letter was likely collected at “Wuse Market” by the person meant to deliver it.

An official of OAGF, Mr. Bello, told the panel that agencies usually pick up their mail. In this case, Adeyemi came in person and collected the letter on behalf of the State House.

Gagdi said that code became the basis for PFIPC to lobby its way into the budget. According to him, Adeyemi then forged another letter, supposedly from a non-existent State House department, acknowledging receipt of the code and forwarded it to the Budget Office. That, the chairman said, misled officials into making budgetary provision for the council.

Luka insisted the failure was not a systemic one.  
“The lapse here was not an office lapse. The letter was hijacked. It was an individual’s fault and not a system fault,” he said.

 
Also appearing, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Esther Walson-Jack, said her office did not deploy staff to PFIPC, give it office space, or approve a structure for it. 

She explained that the group came for the 2025 manpower budget defence with what looked like a valid DG appointment letter and an “Establishment Act.” Based on that, her office processed an authorised establishment and a provisional recruitment waiver.

“Having seen all the facts and observed all the documents, we concede that we ought to have carried out more due diligence,” Walson-Jack admitted. 

She said in nearly 30 years of legal practice and a century of civil service, she had not seen fraud of this scale. She noted the confusion was worsened because the group used the acronym PFIPC alongside the real Presidential Economic Advisory Council, PEAC. After reviewing the documents herself, she said the “Act” was fake and the signature on the appointment letter did not match authentic State House letters.

Her office has recovered the authorised establishment, but the recruitment waiver is missing.

 
The Inspector-General of Police, represented by Deputy Commissioner Olufemi Akinyola of the National Cybercrime Centre, told the panel Adeyemi could not be produced because he is in custody under a subsisting court warrant. 

“It would be appreciated if the committee could obtain a production warrant from a court of competent jurisdiction to enable us to comply,” Akinyola said. Gagdi said the committee would proceed within the law.

Gagdi said evidence so far points to extensive document forgery across several institutions. The committee will now move the rest of the probe behind closed doors to get clarifications and give all affected agencies a fair hearing.

He added that after the closed-door phase, the panel will release preliminary findings before submitting a final report to the House when it resumes from recess.