Accountant-General Exposes Forged State House Letter Behind PFIPC Recognition

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi, informed the committee that a forged letter, which purportedly originated from the State House, was allegedly used to obtain official government recognition for the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).

He said his office first encountered the purported council in November 2024, when a letter dated 7 November 2024 bearing a State House reference number requested the creation of an administrative code for budgeting, accounting and reporting purposes.

Following standard procedure, the Office of the Accountant-General generated the administrative code and communicated the approval back to the State House, copying the Office of the Auditor-General.

Subsequent requests from the supposed council included applications for self‑accounting status, staff deployment, access to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and domiciliary accounts, and funding approvals.

Despite processing some of these administrative requests, Ogunjimi stressed that no government funds were ever released to the council.

He noted that the council had sought an establishment grant of ₦27.4 billion, but the request was not approved because there was no budgetary provision to accommodate it.

Two domiciliary accounts were opened by the Central Bank of Nigeria for inflow purposes, yet they never became operational as the council failed to meet the required regulatory standards.

Lawmakers questioned how the entity managed to navigate government procedures without raising suspicion. In response, Ogunjimi disclosed that the original letter requesting the administrative code was never issued by the State House.

He described the correspondence as a “hijacked” State House letter, allegedly used to mislead government institutions into processing requests for a non‑existent agency.

The committee also inquired about staff originally posted to the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to the President who later appeared to be attached to the purported council. Ogunjimi explained that two officers deployed in 2010 and 2013 remained in that office after it was allegedly taken over by the new council, without any formal notification to the Treasury.

He added: “It was never assumed or written to us that those two officers were being taken over. The staff also never reported to the office to say another council had taken over the office and the name had changed. As far as I was concerned, we were dealing with a new agency, not the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser.”

When the purported council later requested the deployment of five additional staff, the Treasury approved only three, deeming the organisation too small to justify the higher number.

Ogunjimi concluded that, based on the records available to his office, the officers were still believed to be serving with the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser, and the Treasury had no knowledge of their reassignment.