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Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has charged President Bola Tinubu to order a comprehensive and independent probe into the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) scandal within seven days.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said failure to do so would mean that powerful interests in government are allegedly involved in the scandal.
The PFIPC “Director General” Prince Adeyemi Matthew and Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President, have been engaged in a war of words over the existence of the agency recently.
On Wednesday, presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, issued a statement disowning the PFIPC and Adeyemi and siding with Gbajabiamila. However, the statement by the Presidency has generated more controversy.
The former Vice President maintained that the latest revelation on the PFIPC scandal have moved the issue beyond ordinary forgery allegations into a full-blown crisis of institutional credibility.
Atiku, who is also the African Democratic Congress (ADC) 2027 presidential candidate, noted that the issue before Nigerians is no longer whether one individual forged documents or impersonated government officials but “how official government processes allegedly recognised, processed and advanced the affairs of an agency the Presidency insists never existed.”
The ADC presidential candidate, while stating that the official explanation offered by the Presidency, Onanuga, does not add up and has left more questions than answers, public records have reportedly shown the PFIPC captured in the 2026 Appropriation Act with a budgetary allocation running into billions of naira.
According to him, “If the government wants Nigerians to believe that one man single-handedly created an office for himself, secured office space within a government facility, held meetings with foreign embassy delegations, paid courtesy visits to the EFCC, processed staff salaries through official channels, allegedly operated institutional accounts, and carried on all these activities without the knowledge, approval, negligence or collaboration of anyone within government, then that narrative raises even more troubling questions than it answers.
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“At this point, the story looks less like a clear explanation and more like an attempt to isolate one man after an internal arrangement went sour. If Mr Adeniyi Adeyemi committed fraud, he must face the law. But the bigger question is this: what kind of government system allows such an elaborate operation to pass through budgetary, administrative, security and institutional channels without detection?
Haba. Nigerians cannot be asked to swallow such a story whole.”
He added that fresh reports indicating that the Office of the Head of the Civil Service allegedly approved the recruitment of over 300 personnel into the PFIPC have fundamentally altered the nature of the scandal.
“These developments cannot be dismissed as administrative oversights. Budget preparation is a structured process involving ministries, departments, agencies, the Budget Office, the National Assembly and ultimately presidential assent. Recruitment into the Federal Civil Service is also governed by manpower planning, establishment approvals, financial implications, grade-level classifications and institutional clearances. These things do not happen by accident.
“It stretches credibility beyond reasonable limits to suggest that an agency described as entirely fictitious could appear in official budget documents, reportedly obtain recruitment approval for hundreds of personnel, secure official space, interact with state institutions and foreign missions, and yet have no enablers within government.
“As Chinua Achebe once reminded us, a man who has been asked to carry a basket of eggs does not break them all and then blame the road. The Presidency cannot continue blaming one man while refusing to account for the official systems that gave life to the scandal,” the former Vice President stated.
Furthermore, Atiku noted that Adeyemi claims that powerful figures are attempting to silence him, which has made an independent inquiry even more urgent.
He said, “Whether his claims are true or false is not for the Presidency to determine through press statements. That is precisely why Nigeria needs an independent investigation. Let the facts speak. Let every document be examined. Let every approval be traced. Let every official who acted, neglected a duty, or enabled this scandal be identified and held accountable.”
