House Committee Exposes Fake Investment Council and Clears Chief of Staff

A House of Representatives ad hoc committee has declared the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) a fictitious organization with no legal foundation. In preliminary findings released Wednesday in Abuja, the committee determined that the agency was never established by an Act of the National Assembly and relied on forged documents, including a fabricated presidential appointment letter for its purported Director-General, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi.

The investigation cleared Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila of allegations that he received bribes to facilitate the agency's creation. The panel found that Gbajabiamila actually triggered the investigation by alerting security agencies within one day of receiving a fraud warning from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission. In response to previous claims by Adeyemi that he paid bribes, Gbajabiamila has filed a 15 billion naira defamation suit.

Investigators linked Adeyemi to 58 bank accounts and a network of 12 other fraudulent organizations. The PFIPC allegedly operated from the Federal Secretariat Complex and managed to secure a 2026 budget allocation and Central Bank of Nigeria accounts through forgery. The committee also identified administrative lapses within the Budget Office of the Federation and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation for failing to verify the council's legality.

Adeyemi now faces eight counts of forgery and impersonation brought by the Nigeria Police Force, while the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission is conducting a separate probe. Committee Chairman Yusuf Gagdi recommended the creation of a centralized digital verification platform to prevent similar institutional failures.