ICPC Clears Presidency, Says PFIPC Was ‘Phantom’ Agency Run With Forged Documents

By Victor Idajil

The ICPC has cleared the Presidency of any role in the creation of the so-called Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, PFIPC, and in the appointment of its purported Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi.

ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu, disclosed this on Wednesday after submitting an interim report to President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

According to Aliyu, the appointment letter Adeyemi presented was forged and did not come from the State House. 

“The ICPC discovered that Adeyemi also created two additional fictitious government agencies, apart from the one that is known in the public domain,” he said. 
The other fake bodies identified are the FCT Investment Promotion Agency, FIPA, and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency and Public Private Partnership, FIPA-PPP.

President Tinubu had on July 7 directed the ICPC to investigate the council and report back within 30 days.

The commission’s findings: Adeyemi “was never appointed by the federal government or any authority of government,” and the council “was never established by any law, executive order or other valid instrument of government.”

Aliyu said Adeyemi hijacked the identity of the defunct Presidential Economic Advisory Council, PEAC, illegally broke into its former office, and used forged government documents to run the fake agency. No federal funds were approved or released to the PFIPC.

“Our investigation found that weaknesses in verification, inter-agency oversight and government processes were exploited by Adeyemi with some level of negligence,” the ICPC chairman added.