CBN, Civil Service Disown PFIPC Before Reps
The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation on Monday drew a firm line between themselves and the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, telling federal lawmakers that neither institution created, funded nor staffed the body now at the centre of one of the year’s most closely watched governance disputes.
Both agencies made the disclosures before the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee investigating the alleged establishment of the PFIPC without a valid legal framework, a controversy that has already produced an eight count criminal charge, a presidential disclaimer, and hard questions about how a council many officials now describe as non existent found its way into the 2026 national budget.
Representing the CBN Governor, a Director at the apex bank, Hamisu Abdullahi, told the panel that the bank does not open, close or alter accounts for Ministries, Departments and Agencies on its own initiative, and handles such requests only through the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation. “As a banker to the Federal Government, the Central Bank has responsibility for opening all accounts for Ministries, Departments and Agencies, with the exception of those exempted from the Treasury Single Account,” he said. That channel flows from the Treasury Single Account regime, enforced fully from 2015 to consolidate government revenues at the CBN and curb leakages.
According to Abdullahi, the bank acted on a mandate from the OAGF dated July 29, 2025 to open two domiciliary accounts, one in United States dollars and one in Pound Sterling, for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council. The accounts were opened the next day, July 30, 2025, but never came alive because the council failed to supply authorised signatories. “Those two accounts remain inactive with zero balance and have never been operated,” he stated, adding that there had been no foreign exchange allocations, remittances, inflows or outflows. “The accounts have maintained zero balance from inception to date,” he said, noting that the council never corresponded directly with the bank.
The testimony of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, was equally distancing. She told the committee that her office plays no constitutional role in creating agencies and only approves their administrative structures. “The approval and establishment of agencies is not within the purview of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. However, the OHCSF is responsible for approving the administrative structure of federal government agencies,” she said.
Walson-Jack disclosed that the council applied on August 6, 2025 for approval of its organisational structure, but the request stalled because the required documents were absent. During the 2025 annual manpower budget defence, she added, officials of the council sought an establishment and recruitment waiver, telling her office that 14 officers, including the Director General, were already at work and asking for clearance to begin full operations. That request, processed alongside submissions from 87 other MDAs, was later approved in the fourth batch of manpower approvals for 314 positions, made up of the 14 existing officers and 300 new ones.
The office, however, said it subsequently found that the document the council presented as its enabling law fell short. “It was observed that the document presented by the council as its enabling law or legal instrument did not really carry the requisite features,” the representative told lawmakers. She also denied that her office posted any civil servant to the council or granted it office space, describing as incorrect reports linking the OHCSF to accommodation at the Federal Secretariat Phase III.
At the close of the session, the committee chairman, Hon. Abdulmalik Danga, directed the CBN to submit full records of every transaction tied to the two councils. “We want details of account activities relating to the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council as well as the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. From the opening of the accounts to their last status, this committee wants the complete records,” he said. The panel further ordered the bank to trace any related accounts held in commercial banks.
The investigation traces back to a motion of urgent public importance moved on the floor of the House by Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, chairman of the Committee on Navy, who alerted colleagues that a provision of more than ₦1.3 billion had surfaced in the 2026 Appropriation framework for a council no law recognised. The allocation appeared under code 0111062001 in the budget estimates President Bola Tinubu presented in December 2025. Set against an aggregate 2026 budget of ₦68.32 trillion signed into law in April, the sum is minute, amounting to less than two thousandths of one percent of federal spending, yet lawmakers have framed the matter as one of process and integrity rather than value.
Gagdi told the House that the council relied on a purported legal instrument cited as Chapter N2117 of the Laws of the Federation which, checked against National Assembly records, did not exist, and that the closest genuine statute was the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission Act, under which the NIPC has served as the country’s recognised investment promotion agency since 1995. He warned that the ease with which an unestablished body slipped through budget scrutiny pointed to a systemic weakness rather than an isolated error. The Senate, for its part, has said the ₦1.3 billion was neither recommended nor inserted by the National Assembly.
The Presidency had earlier settled the question of status. In a statement by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, the government declared that neither the PFIPC nor the Presidential Economic Advisory Council exists under the Tinubu administration, and cautioned public institutions against transacting with them.
The dispute carries a live criminal dimension. The self styled Director General of the council, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, aged 38, faces an eight count charge of conspiracy, forgery and impersonation filed on November 27, 2025 before the Federal High Court in Abuja and marked FHC/ABJ/CR/562/2025. Prosecutors allege that he forged a presidential letterhead dated March 8, 2024 to request land and office allocations across the states, and falsely presented himself as a public officer while operating from the Federal Secretariat Complex between 2024 and 2025. After Adeyemi missed several hearings, Justice Mohammed Umar issued a bench warrant on July 14, and he was arrested days later in Osun State. The court has fixed September 30, 2026 for his arraignment, with two co accused reported to be at large. Among those listed to testify is the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila.
Adeyemi has consistently denied that the council is fictitious. In an open letter to President Tinubu, he called for an independent, multi stakeholder panel to examine the ₦1.3 billion controversy and said he was ready to produce documents and cooperate fully. He has also stated that he borrowed ₦400 million to secure the appointment and that those who lent him the money reported him to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The saga has revived long standing anxieties about budget padding and so called ghost or phantom entities in Nigeria’s public finance system, a recurring flashpoint in appropriation debates over the past decade. It has equally placed the Treasury Single Account under scrutiny, the very framework the CBN leaned on to argue that it could not have funded the council on its own.
The committee is expected to reconvene once it collates the financial records ordered from the apex bank and follows the documentary trail linking the council to the federal budget.