PFIPC Scandal: ADC Wants Judicial Inquiry, Names 10 Institutions For Probe
A fresh political storm has gathered around the Presidency as the African Democratic Congress pressed for an independent judicial commission of inquiry into the controversy surrounding the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, insisting that the affair has grown far beyond the fate of a single official and now touches the credibility of the Nigerian state itself.
The opposition party accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of failing to explain how a body it now brands “fictitious” allegedly operated across several arms of government, and argued that the manner of the government’s response had raised more questions than it answered.
In a statement issued on Friday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said the government’s handling of the matter had laid bare what it called “the staggering depth of institutional decay” in the current administration. “The issues involved point directly at the heart of national governance and raise fundamental questions about institutional integrity and must therefore be treated with the seriousness it deserves,” the party said.
Abdullahi was responding to a July 1 statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in which the Presidency dismissed the PFIPC as a phantom organisation with no lawful standing. For the ADC, that admission created its own difficulty. If the government’s position is accurate, the party argued, Nigerians deserve to know how an organisation without legal existence could secure recruitment approvals, appear in official budget documents, correspond with public institutions, engage foreign diplomats and interact with multiple government agencies.
“By the presidency’s own account, a body it now describes as ‘fictitious’ allegedly managed to operate across multiple arms of the APC-led federal government, interfacing with ministries, corresponding with public institutions, engaging foreign diplomats, obtaining official recognition from various quarters, and leaving behind a trail that raises serious questions about governance, accountability, and national security,” the statement said.
The party added: “It is no longer a matter involving one individual. It is a matter that goes to the heart of the security and integrity of the Nigerian state.”
The dispute traces back to Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who has publicly presented himself as Director General of the PFIPC. At a press conference on June 25, 2026, Adeyemi levelled a series of allegations against the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila. According to accounts of that briefing widely reported in the Nigerian press, Adeyemi claimed the Chief of Staff received N400m through a proxy and later demanded a further N200m to secure his appointment. He also alleged that Gbajabiamila sought 48 per cent of the council’s proposed N27.4bn takeoff grant, a request he said he turned down. The ADC referenced these claims, noting that the sums allegedly involved ranged between N200m and N600m, and said the documentary evidence already circulating publicly warranted an independent investigation.
The allegations remain unproven and have not been tested in court. The Presidency, for its part, has consistently maintained that the council does not exist. Through Onanuga, the government said its investigations found that Adeyemi allegedly forged a presidential appointment letter, operated a fictitious agency and maintained several bank accounts, some purportedly opened in the names of nonexistent government bodies. The Presidency further noted that Gbajabiamila petitioned security agencies in October 2025 over what it described as an elaborate forgery and impersonation scheme, a step that reportedly led to criminal charges. Court records show the Federal Government has since filed an eight count charge of forgery and impersonation against Adeyemi and others before the Federal High Court. Adeyemi has denied the accusations and insists he will establish his innocence in court.
Much of the public unease has centred on the 2026 Appropriation Act. Commentators have pointed to an apparent contradiction between the Presidency’s denial and the budget itself, which lists the Presidential Economic Advisory Council alongside the PFIPC under the Presidency with an allocation of roughly N1.3bn covering personnel, overhead and capital expenditure. How a body described as fictitious came to hold a line item in a document signed into law has become the central puzzle driving demands for a fuller accounting.
The ADC seized on this contradiction to argue that the government’s decision to concentrate on clearing Gbajabiamila, rather than explaining how the alleged scheme took root, suggested “the administration is either complicit or incompetent.”
To untangle what it called one of the country’s biggest governance scandals, the party named 10 institutions and public offices it believes should be investigated. They are the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the Budget Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Department of State Services, the Nigeria Police Force, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, the Central Bank of Nigeria and relevant committees of the National Assembly.
The ADC said any judicial panel constituted for the purpose should be empowered to summon witnesses, compel the production of documents and determine whether negligence, abuse of office, collusion or criminal wrongdoing occurred. “This matter must not be swept under the presidential red carpet,” the statement read. “Only a truly independent judicial inquiry can establish the facts, identify those responsible, and restore public confidence in the integrity of our institutions.”
The party also charged the Federal Government with applying different rules to political opponents and to those within the President’s inner circle. It cited the treatment of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, recalling how agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Department of State Services were, in the party’s account, promptly deployed in that case.
“Yet, in a matter involving serious allegations concerning the Chief of Staff to the President, the same government has not deemed it necessary even to ask Femi Gbajabiamila to step aside pending an independent investigation,” the party said. “This glaring double standard undermines public confidence and reinforces the perception that there is one standard of accountability for political opponents, and another for those within the inner circle of power.”
The ADC warned that should the Tinubu administration decline to order a transparent inquiry, a future ADC government would reopen the matter. “Every approval, every budgetary allocation, every official correspondence, every financial transaction, and every public officer connected to this scandal will be subjected to the highest level of scrutiny,” it said, adding that “there will be no sacred cows, no untouchables, and no hiding place for corruption.”
The ADC is not alone in demanding answers. Its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has separately described the Presidency’s defence as self indicting, arguing through his spokesman that the government’s explanation amounted to a confession of institutional weakness rather than a rebuttal. The Nigeria Democratic Congress has gone further, calling for Gbajabiamila’s removal to allow an unbiased investigation and raising concerns over the reported death of an alleged intermediary, Babatunde Tanimola, as well as claims by Adeyemi that he survived assassination attempts. A former National Chairman of the Inter Party Advisory Council, Peter Ameh, has also urged the National Assembly and anticorruption agencies to act without delay.
Beneath the political noise sit unresolved factual questions that only a formal inquiry or the courts can settle: who processed the files, who approved the accounts, who inserted the budget line, and how a purported agency was able to draw civil servants and financial infrastructure into its orbit before it was publicly disowned. Reports have indicated that staff were deployed to the body from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and that hundreds of positions were said to have been approved on its behalf, claims that remain contested and unverified.
For now, the Presidency holds firm that the council is a fabrication and that its promoter is an impostor already facing prosecution. The opposition holds equally firm that the fabrication, if it is one, could not have functioned without help from within. Between those two positions lies a scandal that, by the ADC’s framing, has become a measure of whether Nigeria’s institutions can investigate themselves.