Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoS), Esther Walson-Jack, has admitted that her office failed to carry out adequate due diligence in verifying documents submitted by the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) before approving its staffing structure and granting a recruitment waiver.
Walson-Jack made the admission on Wednesday while appearing before the committee investigating the controversy surrounding the PFIPC and the N1.3 billion allocated to the council in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
She explained that her office approved the staffing structure and recruitment waiver after receiving what appeared to be the council’s establishment Act and a letter appointing Adeniyi Adeyemi as its director-general.
“My office received the letter of appointment and the establishment Act and, based on those documents, as well as our interaction with representatives of the PEAC/PFIPC, we proceeded to issue the authorised establishment and later the recruitment waiver,” she said.
The HoS, however, acknowledged that greater scrutiny should have been applied, noting that all the documents presented were later discovered to be fake.
“Having now seen all the facts and examined all the documents, we concede that we ought to have carried out more due diligence in the discharge of our responsibilities before issuing the authorised establishment and recruitment waiver to the PEAC/PFIPC,” she said.
“We knew that PEAC previously existed as an ad hoc organisation, and the documents presented bore the name PEAC/PFIPC. However, proper due diligence could have established whether those documents were authentic.
“So we take responsibility, and we will certainly review our processes to make them more fraud-proof.”
The PFIPC controversy has also drawn in the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila.
Adeyemi, who is accused of operating the fake agency, claimed that Gbajabiamila signed his appointment letter, an allegation the Chief of Staff has firmly denied.
The Presidency has maintained that the appointment letter bearing Gbajabiamila’s signature was forged, while the Chief of Staff had earlier petitioned security agencies over the matter.
Adeyemi was arrested on July 14 by operatives of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) in Osun State as investigations into the alleged fake agency continue.
