The Nigerian government is reeling after discovering that the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC)—an agency that operated from the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, employed civil servants, and secured a 1.3bn naira budget allocation—was a total fabrication.
Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, the man behind the scheme, allegedly used a single forged letter of appointment to gain access to the highest levels of government.
While the presidency claims the agency was a fiction, the fact that a fake entity could obtain office space, hire over 300 staff, and be written into the national budget suggests a massive failure of oversight.
Critics argue that such an infiltration could not have occurred without the complicity of high-ranking officials who manage the budget and civil service.
Transparency groups point out that the agency’s inclusion in the 2026 budget required multiple layers of executive approval, casting doubt on the government's narrative that this was the work of a lone impostor.
As police hunt for Adeyemi, who faces charges of forgery and impersonation, the public is demanding an independent judicial inquiry rather than the internal investigation currently ordered by President Bola Tinubu.
The scandal highlights the dangerous expansion of Nigeria's bloated bureaucracy, which has doubled to over 1,200 agencies, creating a ripe environment for waste and corruption. Whether this investigation will hold powerful officials accountable or simply scapegoat a single individual remains to be seen.
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