ICPC questions Gbajabiamila The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday told the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the legal basis, operations and budgetary inclusion of the ‘phantom’ Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) that it received authorisation from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) to open two domiciliary accounts for the council. The revelation from the apex bank is coming as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Monday questioned the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, over allegations against him by the purported Director General of the council, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi. Adeyemi had alleged that he paid N400 million to Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila through the late Babatunde Dolapo Tanimola to secure the appointment. He also claimed that the Chief of Staff allegedly demanded 48 per cent from the agency’s N27.3 billion take-off grant. Gbajabiamila had debunked the allegations and filed a N15bn defamation suit against Adeyemi. Also, over N1.3 billion was allocated to the PFIPC in the approved 2026 budget, raising questions on how the ‘fictitious’ council found its way into the budget without the National Assembly spotting it. Findings further revealed that Adeyemi got approvals for the employment of 300 staff members and an office space at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja, and opened accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). But the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) insisted that the disputed council had no account with the apex bank, contradicting the Presidency’s statement that Adeyemi used fake documents and misled the OAGF to fraudulently open a CBN account. While appearing before the probe panel shortly after the inauguration of the ad hoc committee at the National Assembly on Monday, a director at the CBN, Hamisu Abdullahi, who represented the CBN Governor at the investigative hearing, disclosed that the apex bank received a mandate from the OAGF to open two domiciliary accounts for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council. According to him, the accounts, one United States dollar domiciliary account and one Pound Sterling domiciliary account, were opened on July 30, 2025. He, however, informed lawmakers that the accounts remained inactive because the council failed to provide authorised signatories required for their operation. “The process for opening the account requires a mandate from the office of the Account General of the Federation. So once we receive that mandate, we perform all the necessary verification to confirm that this mandate is actually coming from the Office of the Accountant General. So once we confirm that, we have some internal procedures too, which we follow to open those accounts. “On the 30th of July 2025, we received a mandate dated 29 July 2025 from the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to the Central Bank of Nigeria to open two domiciliary accounts for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/ Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council. From left: Representative of the Speaker, Prof Julius Ihonvbere; Chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee to Investigate the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), Yusuf Gagdi; members of the committee, Abubakar Hassan Fulata and Sarki Dahiru at the National Assembly in Abuja yesterday. Photo: Ikechukwu Ibe “Based on that mandate, we did the normal verification to confirm the genuineness of the mandate and also process the account opening. And two accounts were actually opened: a domiciliary account, one dollar account and one pound sterling account for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/ Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion. Those two accounts remain inactive with zero balance and have never been operated,” Abdullahi stated. He further disclosed that there had been no financial activities linked to the accounts, including foreign exchange allocations, remittances, inflows or outflows. “There have been no foreign exchange allocations, no remittances, no inflows and no outflows. The accounts have maintained zero balance from inception to date,” he said. The CBN official explained that the bank does not have direct dealings with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on account opening, closure or change of account details except through the OAGF. “As a banker to the federal government, the Central Bank has responsibility for opening all accounts for Ministries, Departments and Agencies, with the exception of those exempted from the Treasury Single Account,” he said. Abdullahi added that the apex bank had no direct correspondence with the council regarding the operation of the accounts. On her part, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, told the committee that her office had n
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