THE Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoS), Mrs. Esther Walson-Jack, has admitted that due diligence was not carried out to verify documents presented by the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) before her office approved the council’s staffing structure and recruitment waiver.
News Point Nigeria reports that Walson-Jack made the admission on Wednesday while appearing before the House of Representatives committee investigating the controversy surrounding the PFIPC and the N1.3 billion allocated to the council in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
The Head of Service explained that her office approved the staffing structure and recruitment waiver after receiving what was presented as the council’s establishment Act, alongside the appointment letter of Adeniyi Adeyemi, who claimed to be the Director-General of the PFIPC.
“My office received the letter of appointment and the establishment Act and, based on those documents and also based on the interaction with the representatives of the PEAC/PFICP, we went on to issue the authorised establishment and later the recruitment waiver,” she said.
Walson-Jack, however, admitted that her office ought to have subjected the documents to more rigorous scrutiny before granting the approvals, noting that all the documents presented eventually turned out to be fake.
“Now, having seen all the facts and observed all the documents, concede that we ought to have carried out more due diligence in the discharge of the duties of the office in issuing an authorised establishment and a recruitment waiver to the PEAC/PFICP,” she said.
“We do know that the PEAC used to exist as an ad hoc organisation on its own, and the documents that were presented had PEAC/PFICP. However, as I said, due diligence may have detected whether those documents were actually authentic.
“So we take full responsibility, and we will definitely see that we review our processes to make them more fraud-proof.”
The controversy surrounding the PFIPC has also drawn the attention of the Presidency, with the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, at the centre of the allegations.
Adeyemi, who is accused of operating the disputed agency, had claimed that Gbajabiamila signed his appointment letter as Director-General.
However, the Chief of Staff has denied issuing the appointment letter, while the Presidency has maintained that the document bearing Gbajabiamila’s signature was forged.
The Presidency also disclosed that Gbajabiamila had earlier petitioned security agencies over the alleged forgery.
News Point Nigeria recalls that Adeyemi was arrested on July 14 by operatives of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) in Osun State as investigations into the alleged operation of the disputed council continue.