By Daniel Oluwatobiloba Popoola
President Bola Tinubu has directed the commissioning of a comprehensive forensic investigation into the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council scandal, following revelations that additional fake agencies were operating within the Federal Government.
The directive was disclosed on Wednesday, 19 August, 2026, by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting, presided over by Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, the Council’s first sitting since Monday, 29 June, 2026.
Oyedele explained that the President gave Council updates on the work done by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), following which Council directed the commissioning of a forensic investigation to examine internal processes, procedures and control weaknesses that allowed such fraud to occur, as findings revealed additional fake agencies beyond the one initially discovered.
He said, “What is important is to establish what went wrong, how it can be prevented, and going forward, how we can make our systems stronger. Systems are built when you find problems, you deal with them decisively, and that’s exactly what Mr President and council have directed today.”
The former tax reform tsar disclosed that the Attorney-General of the Federation and his own office had been directed to work with other relevant agencies to address the matter holistically, spanning its administrative, accounting and governance dimensions.
He explained that President Tinubu had specifically ordered the review to extend to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), warning that fake agencies likely mean fake employees somewhere within the federal payroll.
He said, “Mr President directed that the review should extend to IPPIS, because if you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees. In a country where you would have seen Mr President doing everything to ensure we enhance payroll, salaries and wages, we can’t afford to have fake people hanging around. It undermines our ability to pay our people well, who are doing the hard work.”
Oyedele disclosed that N9.495tn in subsidy savings and incremental revenue had gone into incremental payment of salaries and allowances to civil servants, a figure he said exceeded the actual savings that accrued to the Federal Government from the subsidy removal.
He said, “So we don’t want to be further constrained by fake agencies and fake personnel. This is something we take very seriously, and the Nigerian people will get updates as we progress.”
He explained that someone had managed, in collusion with others, to create a fake agency that operated an office within a Federal Government institution, registering and obtaining an administrative code and a Treasury Single Account (TSA) code, stressing that the only thing that did not happen was the disbursement of funds into those accounts.
He said, “Now the idea is we want to find out what went wrong and strengthen the system.”
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, provided further context on the ICPC’s findings, confirming that the commission’s report identified more than the initially known fake council.
He said, “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. So what the President said was that this is not just about accounting; it is also about the administrative looseness that was discovered by the ICPC.”
Idris explained that the President had directed the Attorney-General and the Finance Minister to jointly examine both the administrative and accounting systems to identify the lapses that enabled the scandal, and to engage professional audit firms for a forensic, total evaluation of the system.
He said, “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 cautioned that the scandal likely predates the current administration, stating, “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 added, “The President is not just looking at this; he is looking at the possibility that this may also have occurred elsewhere, and trying to find a solution that will block this from recurring going forward.”
Earlier in his briefing, Oyedele disclosed that Council approved the signing of Double Taxation Avoidance Treaties between Nigeria and Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania, and Nigeria and Switzerland.
He explained that the overall objective of the treaties was to ensure that Nigeria can expand the opportunities available to Nigerian businesses to invest in other countries, and also to attract investment from those countries, expressing hope that Nigeria could develop a robust tax treaty network to compete with leading countries in Africa such as South Africa, which has over 60 such treaties.
Oyedele also disclosed that Council approved a 1.25 billion dollar financing facility from the International Development Association and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in support of Nigeria’s Actions for Investment and Job Acceleration development policy financing.
He described the facility as concessional, with repayments spanning about 30 years, explaining that it would be dedicated to helping accelerate job creation, which he described as one of the country’s clear priorities.
