The House committee may have cleared Femi Gbajabiamila, but its own findings raise an even more disturbing question: if nobody in the Presidency created PFIPC, how did a completely fake agency penetrate the federal government, enter the 2026 budget, obtain government accounts, secure office space and operate for months without the system noticing?
The House of Representatives has released preliminary findings into the bizarre Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) scandal.
And the headline is predictable:
Femi Gbajabiamila has been cleared.
The committee says the appointment letter purportedly signed by the Chief of Staff, appointing Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi as Director-General, was forged.
It says the letter did not originate from the Presidency.
It says there was no valid law, executive order or other lawful instrument establishing PFIPC.
It says documents were fabricated.
It says government identities were misused.
It says dozens of bank accounts were connected to Adeyemi and related entities.
And it says a fresh ₦400 million transaction is being investigated.
But Nigerians should not be distracted by the convenient headline.
Because the House report does not make the scandal disappear.
If anything, it makes the central scandal even bigger.
If PFIPC was completely fake, how did it get this far?
This is the question the Nigerian government still has not adequately answered.
The committee says PFIPC had no legal foundation.
No Act.
No gazetted enactment.
No valid presidential executive order.
No authentic presidential approval.
No legitimate instrument creating it.
Fine.
Then explain the rest.
How did an organisation that supposedly did not exist become sufficiently convincing to penetrate the Nigerian federal bureaucracy?
How did it obtain government recognition from multiple institutions?
How did it get access to government office space?
How did correspondence bearing purported State House identities move through official channels?
How did it become associated with the 2026 budget?
How did government agencies process its requests?
And most importantly:
How did nobody stop it earlier?
The ICPC's own investigation, released in August, acknowledged precisely this institutional failure.
It found that government institutions failed to adequately verify documents presented by the purported agency. It reported that the OSGF, Accountant-General's Office and CBN had acted on PFIPC correspondence as though the organisation were legitimate.
That is not a minor administrative mistake.
That is a catastrophic failure of government verification.
The “Gbaja is cleared” headline is doing enormous political work
This is where the House report deserves serious scrutiny.
The committee's conclusion is essentially:
The appointment letter was fake, therefore Gbajabiamila was not involved.
But that is only one question.
The much bigger question is:
Who enabled the fake organisation to acquire enough legitimacy to penetrate the Nigerian state?
The report itself says there was an elaborate scheme involving forged presidential correspondence, an alleged fake executive order, an altered legislative document and unauthorised use of the identities of senior officials.
That is not evidence of a small-time con artist operating from a laptop.
This alleged operation managed to interact with multiple layers of the Nigerian state.
And that means the scandal is no longer simply:
“Did Gbajabiamila sign Adeyemi's appointment letter?”
It is:
“How vulnerable is the Nigerian government to institutional impersonation, and who inside government allowed that vulnerability to be exploited?”
That is the question Nigerians should be demanding answers to.
The ₦1.3 billion budget allocation cannot simply disappear from the conversation
One of the most extraordinary elements of this affair is that PFIPC appeared in the 2026 budget framework.
The House itself was investigating the alleged allocation of ₦1.3 billion to the disputed organisation.
Yet the Budget Office subsequently told lawmakers that none of the money was actually spent because statutory conditions for release were not met.
This creates another enormous question.
If PFIPC was a fake organisation, how did a fake organisation enter the federal budget?
Who submitted the proposal?
Who processed it?
Who defended it?
Who approved it?
Who inserted it into the budget documents?
Who verified the agency's legal existence?
Who was responsible for checking whether there was an enabling law?
And why should Nigerians be satisfied merely because the money was allegedly not released?
The fact that a nonexistent agency could appear in a national budget should itself trigger a full institutional audit.
The 58 bank accounts are even more disturbing
The committee says it identified about 58 bank accounts linked through relevant identifying information, with more than 30 apparently operated in the names of agencies, companies, foundations or related entities.
That is not a footnote.
That is potentially an entire financial ecosystem.
The question is not merely:
“Did Adeniyi Adeyemi operate fake accounts?”
The questions are:
Who opened them?
Which banks approved them?
What documentation was submitted?
Which government institutions were used to authenticate those documents?
Were public officers involved?
Were any public funds transferred?
Were international funds solicited?
Were contracts or appointments offered through these structures?
And most importantly:
Who else benefited?
If investigators stop at Adeyemi, Nigerians will reasonably suspect that the easiest person to prosecute has simply been selected while the wider network remains untouched.
Then there is the ₦400 million question
The committee says it is investigating an alleged ₦400 million transaction.
That is significant because ₦400 million was also at the heart of Adeyemi's allegations against Gbajabiamila.
Adeyemi previously alleged that he paid ₦400 million through a proxy in connection with his appointment and claimed that another ₦200 million was requested to facilitate presidential approvals.
Gbajabiamila denied the allegations.
Adeyemi later softened his position, saying he could not state with certainty whether Gbajabiamila was actually involved in issuing the purported appointment letter.
That makes forensic investigation essential.
Not political declarations.
Not press conferences.
Not parliamentary public relations.
Bank records.
If ₦400 million changed hands, investigators need to establish:
- Who paid it?
- Who received it?
- Through which account?
- Through which intermediary?
- On what date?
- For what purpose?
- Where did the money go afterwards?
- Were there withdrawals?
- Were properties purchased?
- Were vehicles purchased?
- Were funds transferred overseas?
- Were political or government officials connected to the recipients?
Money leaves a trail.
Follow the money.
The government cannot have it both ways
This is where the report becomes politically convenient.
The government wants Nigerians to believe two things simultaneously:
First: PFIPC was completely fake and had no government backing.
Second: the government apparatus was sufficiently competent to detect and stop the fraud.
But those two positions collide.
Because if the agency was so obviously fake, why did it penetrate so deeply?
The ICPC itself found verification failures.
The Head of the Civil Service previously told lawmakers that her office had accepted documents because they carried State House branding and what appeared to be a familiar signature. Subsequent comparison and forensic findings showed discrepancies.
That admission is devastating.
Because it means the machinery of the Nigerian state was not defeated by some sophisticated foreign intelligence operation.
It was allegedly fooled by letterheads, signatures and official-looking documents.
That is institutional incompetence on an extraordinary scale.
And now the people investigating the failure are largely from the same political establishment
This is the part Nigerians should not ignore.
The House of Representatives is controlled by the political establishment.
The executive is controlled by the APC.
The Chief of Staff is one of the most powerful figures in the Presidency.
And the scandal directly touches the machinery of the federal government.
So when a parliamentary committee produces a preliminary report that effectively removes one of the Presidency's most politically important officials from the centre of the controversy, Nigerians are entitled to ask whether the investigation has been sufficiently independent.
That does not prove the report is false.
But it creates a credibility problem.
And credibility matters.
Especially when the report simultaneously uncovers evidence suggesting that the federal government was penetrated by an elaborate fake-government operation.
The real scandal is bigger than Gbajabiamila
This is the point the political class would rather Nigerians forget.
Suppose the House committee is completely correct.
Suppose Gbajabiamila never met Adeyemi.
Suppose he never signed the appointment letter.
Suppose the letter was entirely fabricated.
Suppose Adeyemi alone created the fiction.
The scandal would still be enormous.
Because a single individual would then have successfully impersonated the federal government to such an extent that government institutions apparently treated the organisation as legitimate.
That is not a victory for the government.
It is an indictment of the government.
Clearing one man does not clear the system
This is the biggest weakness in the political presentation of the report.
The question Nigerians should be asking is not:
“Is Gbajabiamila guilty?”
It should be:
“How did this happen?”
Those are completely different questions.
A man can be innocent of personally creating a fraudulent organisation while the institution he serves remains responsible for an astonishing governance failure.
The Presidency cannot outsource institutional responsibility to one alleged fraudster.
If PFIPC was fake, then someone should explain why government systems repeatedly behaved as if it were real.
There were warning signs long before the scandal exploded
The ICPC's findings are particularly damaging because they indicate that the fake organisation did not simply exist in isolation.
The alleged PFIPC obtained office space.
It communicated with government institutions.
It pursued government accounts.
It presented purported legislative authority.
It represented senior officials as members.
It allegedly paraded dozens of people as employees.
The House says it is investigating approximately 39 people represented as employees across various cadres.
Thirty-nine people!
That is not a WhatsApp group.
That is an organisation.
And somehow, according to the government's own narrative, it was all fake.
If so, where was everybody?
This is why the APC should not celebrate the report
The report may have protected the political reputation of a powerful APC figure.
But politically, it creates a much bigger problem.
Because now the question becomes:
What exactly is the Nigerian government capable of verifying?
If an individual can allegedly manufacture:
- presidential correspondence,
- appointment letters,
- government identities,
- legislative documents,
- executive orders,
- agency structures,
- official bank accounts,
- government office arrangements,
then Nigerians have every reason to worry about what else may be happening beneath the surface of government.
And if ₦1.3 billion could be appropriated to an organisation that allegedly had no legal existence, then Nigerians should be asking how many other questionable entities, programmes and expenditures are hiding inside government paperwork.
This is not an exoneration of governance
Perhaps the most dishonest way to read the preliminary report is:
“Gbajabiamila cleared. Case closed.”
No.
The case has not been closed.
The committee itself says the findings are preliminary.
It says the alleged ₦400 million transaction still requires verification.
It says financial activity remains under investigation.
It says the recruitment and identities of purported employees are still being examined.
It says questions remain over appropriation, warrants, cash backing and financial releases.
So why are political headlines already treating the matter as though the entire scandal has been resolved?
Because “Gbajabiamila cleared” is a much more convenient political story than “Nigeria's federal bureaucracy was penetrated by a sophisticated fake-government operation.”
The second headline is disastrous for the government.
Nigerians deserve an investigation that follows the money, not the politics
The proper next step is obvious.
The EFCC, ICPC and police should independently establish the entire financial architecture surrounding PFIPC.
Every account.
Every transfer.
Every intermediary.
Every person who received money.
Every institution that authorised anything.
Every official who processed documentation.
Every government office that provided access.
Every person represented as an employee.
Every supposed investor.
Every alleged contract.
Every appointment.
Every government account.
Every budget document.
And every connection between PFIPC and the other entities allegedly associated with Adeyemi.
The House says its investigation has already uncovered a wider network involving other organisations.
That means the investigation should be expanding, not contracting.
And Parliament must investigate itself too
There is another uncomfortable question.
If PFIPC appeared in the Federal Budget Framework and was allocated ₦1.3 billion, Parliament itself must explain how it happened.
The National Assembly is not merely an innocent observer.
It approved the appropriation.
The House committee therefore has to investigate not only how Adeyemi allegedly deceived the executive bureaucracy, but also how the legislative budget process allowed an allegedly nonexistent organisation to appear in the national budget.
That is where a genuinely independent investigation would become uncomfortable.
Because accountability must run in every direction.
The danger of a politically convenient ending
Nigeria has seen this movie too many times.
A scandal erupts.
The public demands answers.
A politically exposed individual becomes the centre of attention.
An investigation is launched.
The individual is cleared.
A convenient villain is produced.
The public is told the system worked.
And everyone moves on.
But the system itself remains untouched.
That cannot happen here.
Because PFIPC represents something much more dangerous than an alleged fraudster.
It represents the possibility that the Nigerian state can be impersonated from within its own administrative machinery.
That is a national-security problem.
A financial-control problem.
A governance problem.
A corruption problem.
And an institutional credibility problem.
The House report may have cleared Gbajabiamila. It has not cleared the government.
That distinction is critical.
The committee says there is presently no documentary evidence establishing that Gbajabiamila authorised, established or participated in PFIPC.
That is a finding Nigerians can examine.
But it does not answer the larger questions.
It does not explain the budget allocation.
It does not explain the government office.
It does not explain the multiple accounts.
It does not explain the institutional failures.
It does not explain the alleged ₦400 million transaction.
It does not explain everyone who interacted with the fake agency.
And it certainly does not explain how a phantom federal institution allegedly travelled through the Nigerian state without being stopped.
So no, Nigerians should not accept the political spin that this is simply a story about an innocent Chief of Staff and one rogue man.
It is much bigger than Femi Gbajabiamila.
It is about the integrity of the Nigerian government itself.
If the House is serious, it should not stop at clearing one powerful man.
It should expose every person, institution and financial channel that allowed PFIPC to exist as a “government agency” when, according to the committee's own findings, no such agency legally existed.
Because if the final outcome is simply:
“Gbajabiamila is cleared; Adeyemi forged everything; everybody else made innocent mistakes,”
then Nigerians have every right to ask:
Who exactly is this investigation protecting?
And more importantly:
Who is going to investigate the investigators?
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