• Gbajabiamila visits body, answers query •House c’ttee summons SGF for allocating office to agency, speaker asks c’ttee to follow evidence • Head of service admits not doing due diligence •Police apprehend, detain four officers over extortion of ICPC chairman in Abuja Deji Elumoye, Alex Enumah, Adedayo Akinwale and Linus Aleke in Abuja The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Dr. Musa Aliyu, has disclosed that investigation surrounding the existence and operations of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) was ongoing. President Bola Tinubu had recently given 30 days ultimatum to the anti-graft agency to investigate Adeniyi Adeyemi, the man who paraded himself as the Director General of the agency. Speaking yesterday in Abuja during a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee, he said the investigation has commenced following the directive of the President. He stated: “Following the President’s directive, we have commenced investigation, we appeal to this committee to give us three days to come back and update the committee on the investigation.” The ad hoc committee has summoned the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, for questioning over allocation of office to the ‘fake’ agency. The committee also summoned the Salaries and Wages Commission, the Federal Character Commission, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagufu, Minister of Finance, Taiwo Oyedele, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, the Accountant General of the federation, Dr. Shamseldeen Ogunjimi and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi to appear it by 10:00a.m. today. The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Walson-Jack, while speaking at the public hearing, stated that the establishment of agency was not under the purview of the Head of service . The office of Head of Service, on the contrary, was responsible for approving the administrative structure of federal government agencies. Walson-Jack added that no office was allocated to the council, adding that the office the council was using was part of the offices allocated to the SGF, who could reallocate as it deems fit. She explained that the request from the council for approval of its organisational structure was submitted on August 6, 2020, which was denied because it lacked prerequisite documents. Walson-Jack noted that the issuance of an authorised establishment was undertaken through an established administrative process coordinated by the Organisation, Design and Development Department. She added that the HoS followed an established administrative practice of collating requests from participating organisations and processing them in batches for approval. The Head of service admitted not doing due diligence to cross check the document submitted by the council at that time was not genuine. She stated: “When all these problems came up, and I said, bring the documents, and immediately I saw it because I am a lawyer with over 30 years’ experience. I said there is something wrong with this. “At that point when I discovered it, I said we need to have another level of verification, and we need to have a lawyer on the team that will receive legal documents, so that the lawyer can access every legal document. “And I’d like to share with you that we’ve already begun the process of reviewing our standard operating procedures to ensure that we have a lawyer working in that department, and that we have different layers of verification of documents. “So we concede that we didn’t do the best we ought to have done in cross-checking that document at the time it was presented.” Walson-Jack authorised establishments to organisations, providing the approved staff and authorised positions. She noted that for newly established organisations, requests for authorised establishment and a provisional recruitment waiver were processed concurrently. According to her, The provisional recruitment waiver allowed organisations to recruit personnel into approved positions. The Head of Service revealed that during the 2025 annual manpower project defence exercise, representatives of the the council, Patricia Akhigbe, who represented Adeyemi appeared before the OHCSF to discuss their organisational structure and staffing requirements. Akhigbe explained that they were participating in the manpower defence process for the first time and required authorised personnel to facilitate operations. Walson-Jack said the Council submitted documents such as the letter of appointment of the Director General and the organisation’s mandate during the bilater
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