By Ayodele Oluwafemi

Bayo Onanuga, presidency spokesperson

The office of the accountant-general of the federation (OAGF) and the presidency have made contradictory statements about the status of accounts domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) linked with the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).

On July 1, the presidency, in a statement, said the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) discovered that Adeniyi Adeyemi, the self-styled director-general of PFIPC, used forged documents to create a CBN account by misleading the OAGF.

The presidency’s statement was issued by Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the president on information and strategy.

Onanuga said the police also discovered that Adeyemi operated 34 bank accounts, with nine opened in the names of fictitious agencies known as the FCT Investment Promotion Agency and the Public Private Partnership (FIPA-APP) and the FCT Investment Promotion Act.

“The Police found that Adeyemi, using the fake documents he created, fraudulently opened a CBN account by misleading the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation,” Onanuga had said.

However, over the weekend, Bawa Mokwa, director of public relations at the OAGF, said PFIPC has no operational account with the CBN.

Mokwa said although an application was made to open a CBN account, the process was never completed because the required documentation to activate the account was not submitted.

He added that the account opening process began based on the document that was presented, but the account could not become operational because the names of the officials expected to serve as account signatories were never provided.

When TheCable reached out to Mokwa on Monday afternoon, he reiterated that the account opening process for the PFIPC was not completed.

Without a legal framework or presidential declaration, PFIPC operated like a government agency with an allocation in the 2026 budget, an office at the federal secretariat and also recruited staff members.

TheCable had reported that the federal government granted a waiver to the controversial PFIPC to recruit 300 members of staff in August 2025

The controversy came to public limelight in June when the presidency distanced itself from the PFIPC, insisting that it does not exist under the current administration.

In a statement, Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to President Bola Tinubu, said his office did not appoint an individual named Adeniyi Adeyemi for the organisation.

However, Adeyemi, convener of the disputed PFIPC, challenged Gbajabiamila’s disclaimer and called on the president to establish an independent panel to investigate the controversy.

Adeyemi questioned how the PFIPC allegedly appeared in the 2026 budget if, as the presidency maintained, the body does not exist.

Source: TheCable