The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoS), Esther Walson-Jack, has told the House of Representatives that the office space occupied by the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) at the Federal Secretariat in Abuja was officially allocated to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), not the council.
She made the disclosure on Monday while appearing before the House ad hoc committee investigating the PFIPC controversy and the N1.3 billion allocated to the council in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
The PFIPC has been at the centre of a growing controversy involving the alleged forgery of an appointment letter purportedly signed by President Bola Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila. The Presidency has maintained that the letter was forged, while the alleged operator of the council, Adeniyi Adeyemi, was arrested by police operatives in Osun State on July 14.
According to Walson-Jack, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service never allocated office space to the PFIPC.
She explained that the council first approached her office in August 2025 seeking approval of its organisational structure, but the request was initially rejected because it failed to provide the required legal documents, such as an establishment Act or another valid instrument creating the agency.
The HoS said the council later submitted additional documents, including the appointment letter of its director-general and evidence that it had already been assigned a budget code. She noted that its request for an authorised establishment and recruitment waiver was eventually included in a batch of submissions approved in July 2025 by the acting permanent secretary during her absence.
Walson-Jack also denied claims that her office deployed civil servants to the PFIPC, stating that although such a request was received, it was never approved. She stressed that recruitment and staff deployment are the responsibilities of individual government agencies.
During the hearing, lawmakers questioned why the HoS accepted the council’s documents without verifying the authenticity of its purported enabling Act.
Responding, Walson-Jack admitted that her office failed to carry out sufficient checks, explaining that officers who initially handled the documents were not lawyers and did not detect that the alleged enabling Act was fake.
She said she only uncovered the irregularity after reviewing the documents following public scrutiny over the council’s budget allocation.
The HoS disclosed that her office is now reviewing its standard operating procedures and will introduce additional legal verification measures, including involving lawyers in assessing all legal documents submitted by government agencies.
She added that matters relating to the establishment and supervision of the PFIPC fall under the statutory responsibilities of the OSGF and other relevant government institutions, not the Office of the Head of the Civil Service.
Also testifying before the committee, Abdullahi Hamisu, Director of Banking Services at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said the apex bank opened two foreign currency accounts for the PFIPC on the directive of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF).
Hamisu said the CBN followed its standard procedures and did not require an enabling Act before opening the accounts. He added that the accounts were never funded or operated.
