ABUJA, NIGERIA — President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive forensic investigation into the creation of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) and other fictitious agencies discovered within the Federal Government system.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

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Oyedele said the directive followed an update presented to the President on the findings of an investigation conducted by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). According to him, the investigation revealed that the PFIPC was not an isolated case, prompting the President to order a wider review of government processes, procedures and internal controls.

“Mr President gave us the updates about the work the ICPC has done, and as a result of that, the council has directed that we commission a forensic investigation that will look into our processes, our procedures, internal control weaknesses that allow some of these things to happen, because the findings discovered that we indeed have additional fake agencies,” Oyedele said.

He said the investigation would establish what went wrong, identify those responsible and recommend measures to prevent similar incidents.

Tinubu Orders Review of IPPIS

Oyedele disclosed that President Tinubu had also directed that the forensic review be extended to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

According to the minister, the discovery of fictitious government agencies raised concerns over the possibility that non-existent employees could also have been inserted into the Federal Government payroll system.

“Mr President directed that the review should extend to IPPIS, because if you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees,” he said.

Oyedele stressed that the government could not afford to have fictitious workers on its payroll, particularly at a time when the administration was working to improve salaries and wages for genuine public servants.

He disclosed that ₦9.495 trillion generated through subsidy savings and increased revenue had been used to fund additional salaries and allowances for civil servants, saying the amount exceeded the actual savings realised from petrol subsidy removal.

Fake Agencies Obtained Government Codes

The minister further revealed that the fictitious entities had allegedly gone beyond registration, securing both administrative codes and Treasury Single Account (TSA) codes within the government system.

However, he clarified that no government funds were paid into the accounts associated with the fake agencies.

“They managed to register and obtain an administrative code as well as a TSA code. The only thing that didn’t happen was that we didn’t pay any money to those accounts,” Oyedele explained.

He said the fact that the entities were able to reach that stage demonstrated weaknesses in the government’s administrative and financial control systems.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and the Ministry of Finance have been directed to work with relevant government institutions to address the matter from administrative, accounting and governance perspectives.

ICPC Finds Two More Fictitious Agencies

Also speaking, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the ICPC investigation revealed that the problem extended beyond the PFIPC.

According to Idris, investigators identified at least two additional fictitious agencies within the government system.

“The President was informed that it is not just about the so-called Presidential Foreign Promotion Council and the fake DG that was there, but that there were at least two additional fake agencies that were in that process,” Idris said.

He explained that the discovery pointed not only to accounting weaknesses but also to what he described as administrative looseness within the system.

Idris said Tinubu had directed the Attorney-General and the Finance Minister to jointly review government administrative and accounting procedures and engage professional audit firms to conduct a comprehensive forensic assessment.

Government Seeks to Close System Loopholes

The Information Minister said the objective of the investigation was to identify and permanently close loopholes that could allow fictitious agencies or individuals to penetrate government systems.

“So that we have a forensic, total evaluation of this system, with a view to plugging this once and for all, so we don’t have this national embarrassment again,” Idris stated.

He also cautioned against assuming that the issue began under the current administration, saying the investigation would determine how far back such weaknesses may have existed.

“I want you to know that this didn’t just happen now. It is possible that this dates back longer than when the President was in office,” he said.

Idris added that Tinubu was also interested in determining whether similar incidents had occurred in other parts of government and ensuring that stronger safeguards were established to prevent a recurrence.

The forensic investigation is expected to examine how fictitious agencies were created, how they obtained official administrative and financial codes, the weaknesses that allowed them to penetrate government systems and whether similar vulnerabilities exist elsewhere in the Federal Government.