The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Monday honoured an invitation from the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, submitting himself for questioning over the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, PFIPC, the fake agency at the centre of a widening national interest.
His appearance was confirmed in a statement issued by his Principal Counsel, Mr. Jiti Ogunye of Jiti Ogunye Chambers, who told newsmen that the former Speaker of the House of Representatives arrived at the ICPC office in Abuja about 3:00 p.m.
“In full cooperation with the ICPC acting as directed by the President of Nigeria, I hereby confirm that my client, Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President of Nigeria, responded to the invitation of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and appeared at about 15:00hrs on Monday, July 20, 2026, as part of the ongoing investigation into the activities of the ‘PFIPC’ fake agency, among others,” Ogunye said.
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“My client gave his testimony, responded to questions accordingly, and has returned to his duty post.”
The appearance comes at a critical juncture in an affair that has gripped the nation for weeks and raised penetrating questions about the integrity of Nigeria’s bureaucratic machinery.
The Origins of the Scandal
For much of 2025, the PFIPC operated in plain sight as a seemingly legitimate federal agency. Headquartered within the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja, it presented itself as a body created to attract foreign investment into Africa’s most populous nation.
Career civil servants were assigned to its offices, it maintained a website on the government’s official “.gov.ng” domain, and it secured approval to hire more than 300 staff at a time when public-sector recruitment had been frozen.
Its self-styled Director-General, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, met cabinet ministers, financial regulators, the head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, and foreign diplomats. When the 2026 Appropriation Act was signed into law, the council appeared within it — fully formed, with its own budget code and an allocation of N1.3 billion.
Then, in June 2026, the presidency shattered the facade. It announced that the PFIPC had never been created by law, by presidential order, nor by any other official instrument. Its apparent legitimacy, investigators said, rested on a single forged appointment letter purporting to bear the signature of Gbajabiamila himself.
Adeyemi’s Counter-Allegations
Adeyemi, who has since been arrested, arraigned, and remanded at Kuje Correctional Centre, has fiercely denied the forgery charges. Instead, he has alleged that Gbajabiamila collected N400 million through a proxy to facilitate his appointment as DG, later demanded an additional N200 million, and sought 48 per cent of a purported N27.4 billion take-off grant for the council.
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