House of Reps to Investigate ₦1.3 Billion Budget for Fake Agency

The House of Representatives has decided to look into the inclusion of over ₦1.3 billion for a non-existent federal agency in the 2026 budget plan. Lawmakers say this situation is a big blow to Nigeria’s budget process and public financial management.

This decision came from a motion of urgent public importance by Yusuf Gagdi (APC, Plateau). He warned that this issue shows serious problems in the country’s budget system and raised fears that other fake agencies might have slipped into past budgets unnoticed.

The planned investigation will check how the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) got budget allocations when it was never set up by any law or official order.

Mr Gagdi said that the council was said to operate from the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja. It interacted with different government bodies and pretended to be a real agency until the federal government declared it non-existent.

Mr Gagdi added that the activities of this group are already under investigation by the Federal High Court in Abuja. He emphasized that the House investigation will focus only on the budget issues and the failures that allowed this group to be recognized officially.

He informed lawmakers that the group used a document claiming to set it up under "Chapter N2117 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria." But records from the National Assembly show that no law was ever passed to create such a council. He pointed out that the closest law is the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) Act, making the document the council used "clearly false" when compared with official records.

Mr Gagdi also mentioned that over ₦1.3 billion related to the council was listed in the 2026 budget, raising serious questions about how an agency with no legal backing could pass through the budget checks by the executive and legislature. He said, "The ease with which a single unestablished entity processed through official channels suggests a systemic vulnerability rather than an isolated administrative lapse."

After adopting the motion, the House decided to:

• Form an ad hoc committee to investigate how the budget provision got into the 2026 budget, following it from the executive proposal through committee checks.
• Invite the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning and the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation to explain how they verify new entities before putting them in the federal budget.
• Order that every ministry, department, agency, and government body in the 2025 and 2026 budgets be checked against their legal establishment documents.
• Ask the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to confirm that no public funds have been released to this alleged agency and that no payments will be made until the investigation is over.
• Require the Budget Office to submit a certified list of all proposed bodies for funding with their enabling laws alongside every budget bill to prevent fake entities from being included.

Mr Gagdi based these resolutions on Sections 80, 81, 88, and 89 of the Constitution and Sections 19, 30, and 50 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.

Supporting the motion, Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu shared that he had met representatives of the organization after getting a letter that looked official with the Presidency’s emblem. He said his office received a letter dated 2 May 2025 from a group that called itself both the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) and the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

The letter had a Federal Secretariat address, an official-looking government logo, and a “.gov.ng” website. This made his office check the organization’s office before meeting them. While officials confirmed the group was operating from that office, Mr Kalu said the delegation did not discuss the policy issues in their letter and instead seemed more interested in taking photographs.

"This shows that just having the Presidency on a letterhead is not enough proof that an agency is real," he said. He added that the House must investigate how this organization got office space and access to top government officials.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported on the actions of the PFIPC and its leaders, who claimed to be part of the Presidency. The center of the issue is Adeniyi Adeyemi, who said he was the director-general of both the PFIPC and the PEAC.

Mr Adeyemi and his team reportedly attended official events and met with senior officials while using official-looking letterheads and a government-style identity.

But the Presidency later disowned both Mr Adeyemi and the organization. In a statement from the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Presidency clearly stated that neither council exists under President Bola Tinubu’s administration and warned public agencies not to deal with them.

The Senate also explained on Tuesday that the ₦1.3 billion in the 2026 budget for the fake PFIPC was "not recommended nor inserted" by the National Assembly.