Senate meets Tuesday as fake agency budget row deepens

The Nigerian Senate is set to confront a significant controversy surrounding a N1.3 billion allocation to the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council within the 2026 Appropriation Act when plenary sessions resume on Tuesday.

The scandal involves a forged appointment letter, purportedly bearing a falsified signature of the President's Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila. This fraudulent document reportedly secured an office for Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew at the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja, lending the controversial agency an air of government legitimacy for over a year.

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It was not brought in as a stand-alone item. It was done collectively with others that came in directly from the Presidency. So there was no defence or oversight.

Multiple sources within the Presidency and the civil service, speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of ongoing investigations, pointed to a cascade of bureaucratic failures. These lapses occurred at the Budget Office, the House of Representatives, and the Civil Service Headquarters, preventing the scandal from being identified and addressed earlier.

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The mistake came from several areas, the House of Representatives, the Head of Service, the Budget Office. Most of them did not do due diligence. But you see where you can’t readily blame all of them is what we call grundnorm. There is a foundation. The appointment letter was fake. It was invalid.

Sources argue that the failure to conduct adequate due diligence allowed the fraudulent appointment to bypass essential checks. The N1.3 billion allocation was reportedly approved without Prince Adeyemi or any council official appearing before the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service to defend the budget. A National Assembly source indicated the allocation was inserted through an "backdoor arrangement" as part of a collective package from the Presidency, bypassing standard oversight and defense procedures.

Adding to the complexity, a Presidency source explained that the constitutional appointment process typically involves the President's direct approval, with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) issuing the official letter. The alleged forged letter violated this established procedure, highlighting a fundamental breakdown in governmental safeguards.

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In government, the way it runs is that it is the President, not the Chief of Staff, who appoints. The letter of appointment is then issued by the SGF.