PFIPC Scandal: ADC Accuses Govt of Prioritising Damage Control Over Investigation

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has criticised the interim findings of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) concerning the alleged fraudulent Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), arguing that the report leaves critical questions about the scandal unanswered.

The party said the ICPC’s findings failed to explain how an organisation that the government now describes as fictitious was able to obtain federal government office space, have civil servants assigned to it, receive official vehicles and security support, and secure a reported N1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 federal budget.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said the report appeared more focused on protecting government institutions and officials from scrutiny than on establishing how the alleged scheme was able to penetrate government structures.

According to the party, the circumstances surrounding PFIPC could not reasonably be dismissed as an administrative error or a breakdown in bureaucratic procedures.

The ADC recalled that when President Bola Tinubu directed the ICPC to investigate the matter, it had called instead for an independent panel to conduct a comprehensive inquiry. The party said the interim report had reinforced its concerns about relying solely on the anti-corruption agency to investigate the matter.

The party questioned the ICPC’s decision to recommend only one individual, identified as Adeyemi, for prosecution while acknowledging that the investigation was still ongoing or inconclusive.

“If the investigation is still preliminary, the ADC questions why its findings were made public in a manner that could prejudice further proceedings and create the impression that Adeyemi was solely responsible for the entire affair,” the party said.

The ADC argued that the central issue was not simply how an alleged impostor created or operated the PFIPC, but how the organisation managed to obtain the institutional recognition and resources required to function within the federal government system.

The party said the reported presence of PFIPC within the Federal Secretariat raised questions that could not be answered by blaming a single individual.

It asked how the organisation obtained office accommodation, secured the deployment of civil servants, received official vehicles bearing customised number plates and gained access to armed security personnel if it had no legitimate government approval.

The ADC also placed particular emphasis on the reported N1.3 billion provision for PFIPC in the 2026 Appropriation Act.

The party said a budgetary allocation of such magnitude could not simply appear without passing through several stages of proposal, verification, processing and approval.

It therefore challenged the ICPC and the government to establish who proposed the allocation, which officials processed it, who verified PFIPC as a legitimate beneficiary and how the organisation survived the scrutiny involved in the preparation and passage of the federal budget.

The ADC noted that the National Assembly had also begun examining how PFIPC allegedly found its way into the 2026 budget, saying the outcome of that inquiry would be critical to determining the extent of institutional involvement.

The party maintained that prosecuting one individual without investigating the officials and institutions that may have facilitated the organisation’s activities would amount to holding only one person responsible for a scheme that apparently required access to multiple government systems.

It further alleged that the ICPC’s findings appeared to reinforce the government’s original explanation that PFIPC was essentially the work of a sophisticated impostor who succeeded in deceiving government institutions.

The ADC rejected that explanation, arguing that the scale of the organisation’s alleged access to government resources made it necessary to investigate possible complicity or negligence within the public service.

The party also raised concerns over reports that the investigation had uncovered two additional fictitious organisations allegedly connected to the principal suspect.

It argued that the discovery should make it even more important for investigators to establish whether government officials or institutions knowingly or negligently facilitated the activities of the organisations.

The ADC called on the ICPC to immediately publish the complete interim report so that Nigerians could independently assess its findings and conclusions.

It also demanded that any public official whose actions or negligence contributed to the alleged legitimisation of PFIPC or related organisations should be identified and held accountable if wrongdoing is established.

The party stressed that its demand was not for government to manufacture additional suspects, but for investigators to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

According to the ADC, identifying and prosecuting a single alleged mastermind without answering the broader institutional questions would leave the most important aspects of the scandal unresolved.

The party said Nigerians deserved to know how an organisation that allegedly had no legal foundation was able to operate within government structures, access public resources and secure a place in the national budget.

It warned that unless the investigation addresses those questions comprehensively, the exercise would continue to be viewed as an attempt to manage the political fallout from the scandal rather than a genuine effort to establish the truth and ensure accountability.