Fresh discrepancies have surfaced in the ongoing House of Representatives investigation into the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), with the State House denying any role in the council’s establishment or in seeking a budget code for it.
The revelations emerged on Thursday during a hearing of the House Ad-hoc Committee at the National Assembly in Abuja. Officials from the State House and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) appeared before lawmakers to clarify their involvement in the activities of the council, which is alleged to have functioned without legal approval.
The committee is probing the circumstances surrounding the creation of the PFIPC, how it allegedly gained official government recognition and became incorporated into aspects of the Federal Government’s administrative and budgetary framework in the 2026 Appropriation Act despite questions over its legal standing.
Representing the Permanent Secretary of the State House, the Director of Administration, Abdulkadri Idris, told the committee that the Presidency neither initiated nor approved the establishment of the council and never requested the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to assign it a budget code.
“I want to state that we did not send any correspondence nor any request to the Office of the Accountant-General in respect of this council. We don’t even know anything about this council. We never heard about this council until we started seeing it in the media,” Idris said.
He explained that the State House has no legal responsibility for creating government agencies and therefore could not have issued any correspondence establishing the PFIPC.
Idris also rejected documents presented before the committee that allegedly originated from the State House, describing them as fraudulent.
According to him, one of the documents purportedly signed by “Akande Adewale” as Director of Administration and Support Services could not have come from the Presidency because neither the office nor the individual ever existed.
“I presented the list of Directors of Administration in the State House from 2003 to date, and there was no name resembling Akande Adewale.
“In addition, there is no department known as Directorate of Administration and Support Services in the State House. We have only the Department of Administration. Akande Adewale has never, ever been Director of Administration in the State House,” he clarified.
To support its position, the State House submitted official documents previously forwarded to the Nigeria Police National Cybercrime Centre, including authentic letterheads and a historical record of Directors of Administration.
Reacting to the testimony, Chairman of the committee, Yusuf Gagdi, said the evidence exposed major inconsistencies between documents obtained from the Office of the Accountant-General and records presented by the State House.
“The State House has denied that it ever wrote any letter to the Accountant-General requesting budget codes. Secondly, there is no Directorate of Administration and Support Services as contained in those documents.
The Accountant-General responded to an office that the State House says does not exist, while the name of the signatory, Akande Adewale, is absent from all official records submitted to this committee,” Gagdi said.
He described the findings as a significant breakthrough in determining how official government procedures were allegedly manipulated to legitimise the PFIPC.
The State House further denied issuing an appointment letter to the council’s purported Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi, insisting that appointments of heads of federal agencies are political appointments conveyed through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
“If the president approves any appointment, the conveyance is done by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation,” the State House representative said.
Meanwhile, the FRSC defended its decision to issue seven official Federal Government number plates to the PFIPC, saying it acted in accordance with its standard administrative procedures based on the documents and representations submitted by the applicants.
In a memorandum dated August 6, 2026, and signed by Corps Marshal Shehu Mohammed, the agency stated that it carried out its routine verification process before approving the request.
According to the Corps Marshal, the application stemmed from a letter dated April 4, 2025, signed by Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi on behalf of the Office of the Director-General of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council.
He said a reminder dated April 11, 2025, was later submitted together with documents claiming to establish the council, outlining its responsibilities and identifying the vehicles requiring official registration.
Mohammed disclosed that Prince Adeyemi personally delivered the application at the FRSC headquarters.
He explained that because the PFIPC claimed to be a newly established federal agency, the Corps conducted additional verification by examining the supporting documents, visiting the government website provided by the applicant—which carried a Federal Government domain name—and physically inspecting the council’s office at the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase III, Central Business District, Abuja.
“Having completed the foregoing verification processes and being satisfied with the information presented, the Corps approved and allocated seven Official Federal Government Vehicle Number Plates to the Agency,” Mohammed said.
The vehicles included a 2024 bulletproof Lexus LX, two Toyota Land Cruiser SUVs and four Toyota Hilux vehicles, which were assigned official registration numbers PFIPC 01 to PFIPC 07 after their chassis numbers were verified.
Mohammed, however, said the Corps later discovered that the council had no legal recognition as a Federal Government agency.
“It therefore came as a profound shock to the Corps when it subsequently emerged that the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council was not an approved Federal Government Agency and that the representations made by Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi were false,” he stated.
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He added that the FRSC had begun steps to recover all seven official number plates issued to the council and had strengthened its internal verification procedures to prevent similar occurrences.
During the hearing, Gagdi questioned the credibility of the verification process after noting that the documents relied upon by the FRSC lacked standard government security features and unusually listed President Bola Tinubu, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and several ministers as members of the council.
“Does this look normal to you?” Gagdi asked.
Responding, the Corps Marshal admitted, “No, not at all.”
He nevertheless maintained that the FRSC acted based on the information available at the time, including the operational office, official-looking documents, the government-domain website and verified vehicle chassis numbers.
The committee subsequently directed the FRSC to provide details of the current status and whereabouts of all vehicles registered under the PFIPC.
Gagdi also announced that the investigation would be concluded next Wednesday and instructed the committee clerk to invite all relevant agencies for the final phase of the inquiry.
The House constituted the Ad-hoc Committee following allegations that the PFIPC operated as a Federal Government agency without legal backing, obtained official approvals and documentation, and was integrated into government administrative processes.
Lawmakers say the investigation seeks to determine how the council emerged, identify those responsible and recommend safeguards against similar breaches in public administration.