The House of Representatives has explained why Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, was not summoned or questioned during its investigation into the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, PFIPC.
Chairman of the House ad hoc committee conducting the probe, Yusuf Gagdi, said the investigation was primarily aimed at determining how the purported agency was created and how it gained access to government administrative and financial structures despite allegedly lacking a valid legal foundation.
Gagdi, a federal lawmaker from Plateau State, disclosed this on Wednesday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He said the committee’s mandate was broader than investigating allegations involving Gbajabiamila, stressing that its immediate responsibility was to determine who established the PFIPC and the authority under which it operated.
“Actually, the impression that people have that the entirety of that committee is about Femi Gbajabiamila is not true.
“There are so many issues and terms of reference donated to the committee by the House of Representatives in view of the activities surrounding the unestablished agency,” he said.
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According to him, the committee publicly advertised the investigation and invited members of the public, government institutions and other relevant bodies to submit memoranda and supporting documents.
Gagdi explained that the committee was required to establish, among other issues, whether the PFIPC had any legal basis and how an organisation without such backing could have become integrated into the Federal Government’s administrative and financial systems.
The clarification followed the committee’s presentation of its findings in Abuja on Wednesday, during which Gbajabiamila was reportedly exonerated.
Adeyemi, who described himself as the Director-General of the PFIPC, had previously alleged that Gbajabiamila received N400 million through proxies in relation to appointments into the organisation.
Gbajabiamila denied the allegation and subsequently instituted a N15 billion defamation suit against Adeyemi.
Gagdi maintained that the committee’s work was not structured around the President’s Chief of Staff, but around establishing the origin, legality and operations of the purported council.