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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has dismissed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC) interim report on the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) as predictable and inadequate.
The ADC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, accused the Federal Government of prioritising damage control over a thorough investigation.
According to the opposition party, the report failed to explain how a fictitious agency allegedly secured federal office space, had civil servants deployed to it and found its way into the 2026 budget with a N1.3 billion provision, even as the investigation reportedly uncovered two other fictitious organisations linked to the principal suspect.
The operations of the PFIPC have been under scrutiny, recently, after the Presidency disowned the agency, stating that it has no legal backing.
While the opposition called for an independent probe of the “phantom” agency, the Presidency directed the ICPC to investigate the activities of the agency as well as the Director General, Adeniyi Adeyemi.
Last Thursday, the anti-graft agency reportedly confirmed that the operation of the agency was allegedly fraudulent, noting that it also identified lapses in Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
However, the ADC stated that “the ICPC report appeared to have given the impression that what happened was mere failure in government processes or procedures. This position is difficult to sustain in the light of publicly available evidence, which establishes that this is not an error of omission or a mere glitch in the system. Instead, what happened was a grand scam that could have been possible only with the active connivance of government officials and institutions at the highest level.
“The ICPC report also comes gravely short by suggesting that there could be accomplices within the government, but mentioned none. Yet, an agency that was able to recommend only Adeyemi for prosecution on the basis of an investigation that the Commission itself has tagged as either on-going or inconclusive.
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“If all that the commission had to present was a preliminary report, why not simply present it as a confidential brief to the President instead of making a public drama of it in a manner that potentially prejudiced the overall investigation and cast Adeyemi as the principal culprit?”
The opposition party, while calling for the immediate publication of the ICPC interim report, noted that Nigerians need an investigation into how a “fictitious agency” managed to obtain all authorizations and institutional support required to operate as a legitimate government agency.
It added: “What is clear is that the so-called PFIPC was not a creation of any Nigerian law or legitimate executive approval. Yet this same organisation managed to secure office space within the Federal Secretariat.
“If according to the ICPC report, Adeyemi had kicked down the door of the Secretariat office and allocated it to himself, did he also deploy the civil servants to himself, allocated a reported N1.3 billion to himself in the 2026 Appropriation Act, allocated official vehicles with customized number plates to himself and deployed armed security to himself?
“It is indeed impossible to answer yes to these questions and not conclude that this is the most incompetent and porous government in Nigeria’s history.
“The ICPC has now reportedly uncovered two additional fictitious organisations linked to Mr. Adeyemi. If this were the case, it should ordinarily widen the investigation, not narrow its conclusion.
“If an investigation into one fake government agency leads investigators to two more, then the obvious question is no longer merely how one individual perpetrated an elaborate fraud. The question is how has this administration operated that made such systemic criminality possible?”
Furthermore, the ADC noted that “most troubling is the N1.3 billion provision in the 2026 federal budget. Budgetary provisions do not materialise by accident. They leave records, submissions, approvals and an audit trail. The National Assembly has itself commenced an investigation into how PFIPC found its way into the federal budget.
“The ADC therefore expects the ICPC to tell Nigerians who proposed the allocation, who processed it, who verified the beneficiary agency and how a body that the Presidency now says never existed survived the scrutiny required to appear in an Appropriation Act.
“To prosecute Mr. Adeyemi without answering these questions would be to punish the man who entered through the window while refusing to ask who left the doors open. What has happened is a national disgrace in the full glare of the entire world. No serious government should be satisfied with identifying one culprit for prosecution.”
