‘Phantom’ council: OAGF, Presidency differ over CBN account

By Afeez Hanafi, Dalhatu Liman & Idowu Isamotu

Revelations on the operations of the alleged fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) took a new twist yesterday when the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) insisted that the disputed council has no account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The stance contradicts a statement by the Presidency that Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, who paraded himself as the Director General of the council, used fake documents and misled the OAGF to fraudulently open a CBN account.

This is coming amidst a police raid on Adeyemi’s family residence in Ogbomoso where his father and one other were picked up on Monday.

Fresh findings by Daily Trust showed that the council operated around the Office of the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator for Livestock Development at the Federal Secretariat Phase III in Abuja.

Gbajabiamila had issued a disclaimer, dismissing the existence of the council, but Adeyemi, in a press conference on Thursday, June 25, countered the disclaimer, describing it as “a cloud of public misrepresentation, institutional denial and a deliberate attempt to silence legitimate questions that concern matters of national interest.”

Consequently, the Presidency, in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, tagged Adeyemi a “con artist,” and that a criminal charge had been filed against him after a police investigation.

The statement was, however, silent on the inclusion of the disputed council in the 2026 budget with an allocation of N1.3 billion; an alleged sum of N400 million Adeyemi claimed to have paid Gbajabiamila by proxy to facilitate his appointment.

A further scrutiny of the statement, as well as insights from senior retired civil servants and civil society organisations, raised more critical questions bordering on public accountability, transparency and institutional integrity.

There are also questions over how the council, whose existence the Chief of Staff denied in an October 2025 response to the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s inquiry, still made it to the 2026 Appropriation Bill submitted to the National Assembly by the president two months later. President Tinubu presented a N58.18 trillion budget to the Senate on December 19, 2025.

As the circumstances surrounding the activities of the phantom council unfold, facts emerged that Adeyemi got approvals for employment of 300 staff members and an office space at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja.

Daily Trust reports that calls for an independent investigation into the scandal continue to gather momentum as the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, also urged investigators to go beyond Adeyemi and expose the internal network that enabled him to operate.

In a statement on Monday, the OAGF – one of the parties at the centre of the ‘fake’ council’s existence – said the PFIPC did have a CBN account and had not received any funds.

The OAGF spokesperson, Bawa Mokwa, explained that an application to open the account was initiated after Adeyemi presented “an appointment letter” linked to an existing government agency.

He, however, said the process stalled because the names of authorised signatories were never submitted, which prevented the account from becoming operational.

“The account has not seen the light of day. It has not received one kobo because it was never fully activated. The Accountant-General has not released any money because there is no operational account for such payment,” Mokwa said.

He said no salaries had been paid to staff of the council, noting that the allocation of the council in the 2026 budget does not automatically translate into the release of funds.

Mokwa explained that federal agencies cannot recruit personnel or process salary payments without obtaining approvals from the Federal Character Commission, the Budget Office and the Federal Civil Service Commission before workers are enrolled on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.

“If an agency is granted a waiver to recruit, it must still obtain approvals from the relevant agencies before presenting staff details to the Accountant-General. Without those approvals, not even one employee can be captured on the payroll,” he said.

Mokwa insisted that the council neither has an operational CBN account nor an approved payroll through which government funds or salaries could be disbursed.

OAGF contradicts Presidency

The OAGF’s position contradicted the narrative of the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, who said in a statement on July 1 that “the police found that Adeyemi, using the fake documents he created, fraudulently opened a CBN account by misleading the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.”

The Presidency, however, maintained that “no government money” had been transferred into the account.

PREMIUM TIMES, citing documents, had also reported that the OAGF wrote to the CBN on July 29, 2025, directing it to open four domiciliary accounts for the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the PFIPC. On August 13, 2025, the CBN informed the OAGF that it had opened a dollar- and pound-denominated account for the council.

Police arrest Adeyemi’s father

Meanwhile, the police on Monday morning raided the family residence of Adeyemi on Plot 3, Adeniyi Dynasty, behind Technical College, Road Safety Area, Ogbomoso and arrested his father alongside a family friend on a visit. Punch quoted human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) to have confirmed the arrest.

“Police have now stormed the house of the parents of Prince Adeyemi Adeniyi, Plot 3, Adeniyi Dynasty, behind Technical College, Road Safety Area, Ogbomoso. The father has been arrested. There is no legal basis for substituted arrests. The young man has promised to show up in court, so why arrest his father?” Falana said.

Efforts to get comments from the police high command proved abortive as several calls to the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Aniete Iniedu, went unanswered. Both text and WhatsApp messages sent to him were not responded to at the time of filing this report.

But a lawyer, Barr. Mustafa Adedibu, said the arrest of Adeyemi’s father is “unlawful,” except the old man is an accomplice.

Adedibu, who maintained that the police should tread with caution to avoid trampling upon the fundamental rights of Adeyemi’s father, explained that arresting individuals by proxy is illegal.

He said, “Arrest by proxy is illegal. If they arrest the person without committing any offence or being part of the offence, it is wrong, except the person is an accomplice.

“If they say his son ran away, they cannot arrest him. If he’s not directly involved in the crime, if he’s not the suspect, he cannot be arrested. Section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act clearly prohibits arrest in lieu otherwise known as arrest by proxy.”

Council’s signboard found in federal secretariat

A visit by our correspondent to the Federal Secretariat last Tuesday and Wednesday did not reveal the office of the council on the second floor of the Phase III complex, where it was said to have operated from, despite enquiries from several staff members.

However, during another visit on Monday our reporter observed that a signboard bearing the “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council” was still mounted at the inner entrance on the ground floor lobby of the section occupied by the Federal Ministry of Health.

Despite the presence of the signboard, our reporter could not locate any office belonging to the council on either the first or second floor of the building, where officials said offices attached to the Presidency are situated.

But a source, who works within the building, told Daily Trust that the council had been operating from the premises since last year, adding that it shared a space with the Office of the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator for Livestock Development. The newspaper could not independently verify the claim.

Further observations showed that signboards for the Office of the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator for Livestock Development as well as the Office of the Special Assistant to the President on Climate Change Matters were prominently displayed at the second-floor lobby.

Staff members familiar with the building’s office arrangement told our correspondent that offices attached to the Presidency are generally located around that lobby.

However, the signboard bearing the PFIPC was located in a relatively obscured section of the ground floor lobby near the entrance to the Ministry of Health. Our correspondent observed that the section of the Phase III complex where the signboard was sighted is occupied from the ground floor to the 11th floor by the ministry.

Officials, agencies with questions to answer

In a news analysis by PREMIUM TIMES, 12 civil servants and agencies that signed letters which aided Adeyemi to secure a CBN account, a budget code, an office space at the federal secretariat and staff deployment, among others.

One of them is Chief of Staff to the President, whom a presidency official, who asked not to be named, said the police needed to explain why they did not interview Gbajabiamila despite Adeyemi’s claim that he helped him to secure the appointment letter.

But, Olanrewaju Smart, a longtime aide of Gbajabiamila, stoutly defended his boss, saying, “How can the whistleblower who got him (Adeyemi) arrested and also issued a public disclaimer be the same person who collected money from him? Shouldn’t he be doing everything to protect the guy? If he exposes the guy, is he not exposing himself? It’s just common sense.

“The so-called appointment letter is clearly forged on its face value, apart from the fact that the Chief of Staff does not and has never issued anyone a letter of appointment. That is the exclusive mandate of the SGF. Even the COS’s letter of appointment came from the SGF. Interestingly, he (Adeyemi) is claiming that the only link between him and the COS died in a fire accident in a hotel. ”

Others identified in the Premium Times’ analysis are the Presidency, Budget Office of the Federation; Office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation; officials at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation; Hamisu Abdullahi, the CBN’s Director, Banking Services Department, who facilitated the creation of the PFIPC’s domiciliary account; Mulikat Sanni, the Director, Treasury Inspectorate at the OAGF, who signed the March 26, 2025 letter approving the self-accounting status requested by Adeyemi and Dauda Abdulhamid, the Director of Administration at the OAGF, who issued the posting of Treasury Officers to the PFIPC.

Others are the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) responsible for giving domain approval for the website – pfipc.gov.ng – used by the PFIPC, and the Nigeria Police Force for delaying the prosecution of Adeyemi since investigation into the matter was concluded on November 13, 2025.

Adeyemi is scheduled to appear before the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 27, raising questions over the lukewarm attitude of the police known for expediting prosecution of criminal cases.

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