By The Central Bank of Nigeria has confirmed that it opened two foreign-currency domiciliary accounts, one in US dollars and another in British pounds sterling, for the now-notorious Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), a scandal-hit government agency whose very existence has come under investigation. The admission directly contradicts an earlier claim by the Accountant-General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi, that no such accounts existed for the council.
The revelation came at a public hearing convened at the National Assembly Complex on Monday by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the PFIPC, chaired by Yusuf Gagdi and set up by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas. The same day, the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, appeared at the headquarters of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to testify in the widening probe.
How the accounts were opened
Represented at the hearing by the Director of its Banking Services Department, Hamisu Ibrahim, the CBN said the accounts were opened on the strength of an official mandate from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, received on July 30, 2025, and dated a day earlier. “We received the mandate to authorise two accounts, one a US dollar domiciliary account, the other a pound domiciliary account, for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council,” Ibrahim told lawmakers.
He walked the committee through the apex bank’s internal process, explaining that once a mandate is received from the Accountant-General’s office, the CBN carries out verification to confirm its authenticity, with the unit handling the mandate kept separate from the unit that actually opens the account, a structure designed as an internal check.
Despite the accounts being opened, Ibrahim said no one ever came forward to activate them. “We did not receive any correspondence, mandate, signature or mandate cards. We were not introduced to the authorising or approving officers,” he said, adding that the accounts had remained dormant with zero balance since inception, with no foreign exchange allocated and no inflow or outflow ever recorded. A statement of account reflecting this was submitted to the committee.
The disclosure leaves an unresolved contradiction at the heart of the scandal: how the nation’s apex bank could hold a documented mandate, purportedly from the Accountant-General’s own office, to open accounts for an agency whose top custodian of public funds insists never authorised any such thing.
Civil service chief distances her office from the council’s operations
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Walson-Jack, also testified, telling the committee that her office never allocated office space to the PFIPC. She said the address publicly associated with the council, inside the Federal Secretariat Phase III, was in fact part of the office accommodation allocated to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) for use by the OSGF and other presidential bodies, not to the council specifically.
She did, however, disclose that during the 2025 Annual Manpower Budget Defence Exercise, the council submitted documents, including the appointment letter of its Director-General and details of its mandate, through an individual identified as Patricia Akhigbe. On that basis, its request was processed alongside those of 87 other ministries, departments and agencies, resulting in an authorised establishment for 314 positions and, days later, a recruitment waiver.
Walson-Jack said Akhigbe had since been invited for police questioning, and stressed that her office neither deployed staff to the council nor approved any recruitment on its behalf, directing further questions to the Office of the SGF.
Following the day’s proceedings, Gagdi directed that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, along with the Inspector-General of Police, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Budget and National Planning, the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Accountant-General, and heads of the Budget Office, the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, and the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, appear before the committee on Thursday.
Gbajabiamila questioned by ICPC, files N15bn suit over kickback claims
Separately, in compliance with President Bola Tinubu’s July 7 directive ordering the ICPC to conclude its investigation into the PFIPC within 30 days, Gbajabiamila appeared at the commission’s Abuja headquarters for roughly 30 minutes on Monday afternoon. His lawyer, Jiti Ogunye, confirmed in a statement that his client had appeared “in full cooperation with the ICPC” and had responded to questions before returning to his official duties. A source within the commission described the visit as voluntary, saying the Chief of Staff “came to volunteer information to help our investigation.”
The appearance coincided with Gbajabiamila filing a N15 billion defamation suit at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory against one Adeyemi, the man at the centre of the PFIPC scandal, seeking N10 billion in general damages, N5 billion in aggravated damages, and N200 million in costs, through his legal team led by Kemi Pinheiro (SAN). The suit responds to allegations Adeyemi made at a June press conference, in which he claimed Gbajabiamila had demanded a 48 per cent kickback from the council’s purported N27.3 billion take-off grant, and that N400 million had already been paid through a proxy, with a further N200 million allegedly required to secure presidential approvals. Gbajabiamila has denied ever meeting or communicating with Adeyemi, or authorising anyone to act on his behalf, and is seeking a public retraction and apology in five national newspapers and across Adeyemi’s social media platforms for 30 days.
Adeyemi’s claims about how the phantom agency got funded
Ahead of his arrest last week in Osun State, Adeyemi had, in an interview with social media personality Martins Vincent Otse (VeryDarkMan), claimed he personally lobbied Budget Office officials to secure the council’s inclusion in the 2026 Appropriation Act, after an earlier attempt to include it in the 2025 budget was rejected for being submitted late. He denied paying bribes, saying he only promised employment opportunities, and claimed he was surprised to later find the council listed in the 2026 budget with a N1.3 billion allocation, having already been arrested by the time the appropriation was passed.
He also sought to distance Gbajabiamila from the affair entirely, saying he had never personally met the Chief of Staff either before or after his appointment, and that an associate, Dolapo Tanimola, had handled matters on his behalf. Tanimola, according to police, died in a hotel fire in Abuja on October 22, 2025, five days before Adeyemi’s initial arrest. These claims by Adeyemi have not been independently verified, and the Budget Office has not publicly responded to them.
Political reactions split along party lines
Adeyemi’s arrest last week, carried out by the Intelligence Response Team following a bench warrant issued after he failed to appear for arraignment, has drawn a range of responses from opposition figures. The National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, Dr Yunusa Tanko, called for a public inquest, describing the scandal as “a national disgrace.” The Social Democratic Party’s National Publicity Secretary, Rufus Aiyenigba, said the arrest was justified but argued that Gbajabiamila should step aside given what he called a “growing pattern” of allegations against him. The National Democratic Congress’s National Publicity Secretary, Osa Director, went further, alleging the arrest was being used to shield others and invoking a precedent from the Buhari era, when then-SGF Babachir Lawal stepped aside amid a separate scandal.
Adeyemi is due back before the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 27, alongside two alleged accomplices, identified only as Femi and Anu, who remain at large.
