ABUJA — The African Democratic Congress (ADC) Vanguard has faulted the Federal Government’s handling of the fake agency scandal rocking the presidency, questioning how a purported Director-General operated an unrecognized council across multiple government organs before being branded an impostor.

The reaction follows recent investigative hearings by the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee probing the creation of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), where lawmakers declared that the appointment letter used to operate the agency carried a non-matching signature compared to authentic documents signed by Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila.

Opposition Questions Oversight Gaps

Reactions from opposition groups and civil society actors have zeroed in on administrative lapses that allowed the purported council to gain traction across government institutions before detection:

“Nine agencies received genuine signatures from Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, yet one DG emerged as ‘fake.’ What a government: the pen is real, the appointment travels officially, but responsibility suddenly becomes a ghost.”

— ADC Vanguard

What House Probe and Investigations Revealed

The House Ad-Hoc Committee, chaired by Representative Yusuf Gagdi, alongside police forensic teams, reviewed multiple official correspondences from the Office of the Chief of Staff addressed to various ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs):

• Authentic vs. Disputed Signatures: Panel hearings established that while nine official correspondences sent to federal ministries contained consistent, authentic signatures from the Chief of Staff, the signature on the disputed appointment letter presented by self-styled DG Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew was completely different.
• Fake Legislative Act: Investigators also noted that the purported Establishment Act presented to back the council lacked standard National Assembly authentication features, including Gazette numbers and official seals.
• Institutional Oversight: The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOS) and officials from key ministries admitted to administrative oversights during budget defense sessions, acknowledging that fabricated documents slipped past initial checks before security agencies were alerted.

Probe Summary

  SUBJECT MATTER:     Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) Probe
  INVESTIGATING BODY: House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee / ICPC
  KEY FINDING:        Appointment letter & Establishment Act declared fake by Reps panel
  OPPOSITION CLAIM:   Systemic oversight failure and institutional accountability gaps

Administrative Response

The Presidency maintains that once the anomaly was detected, the Office of the Chief of Staff petitioned security agencies, leading to police charges against the suspect for forgery, impersonation, and operating fictitious accounts.

However, ongoing legislative and ICPC investigations continue to examine the systemic vulnerabilities that allowed an unrecognized body to seek official recognition and public funding allocations in the first place.