“The central fact is no longer in dispute namely, the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) was never lawfully established.”
Since 1999, successive presidents have, within their constitutional and administrative authority, established presidential advisory bodies to strengthen governance, enrich policy formulation and provide specialised counsel.
PFIPC And Issue Of Legitimacy
These include the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations (PACIR) under President Goodluck Jonathan, chaired by Chief Emeka Anyaoku; the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), constituted by President Muhammadu Buhari, under the chairmanship of Professor Doyin Salami; and the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC), established by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Each was formally constituted by the president, publicly announced, assigned clearly defined responsibilities and derived its authority solely from lawful presidential approval.
The so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) possessed none of those attributes. The Presidency has categorically stated that no such body was ever established and has publicly disowned both the organisation and its purported leadership.
Particularly troubling is the apparent sophistication with which the organisation was presented. Its name appears deliberately designed to mirror the nomenclature of legitimate presidential advisory bodies.
By combining expressions commonly associated with official institutions, such as Presidential, Foreign, Intervention and Council, it projected an appearance of governmental authority to mislead foreign missions, investors and the public.
This resemblance to genuine presidential institutions can scarcely be regarded as accidental. Rather, it appears intended to confer an unwarranted aura of official legitimacy upon an organisation which, according to the Presidency, never existed.
The episode recalls the notorious fake Central Bank of Nigeria Annex uncovered in Lagos in 1997. Like that criminal enterprise, which relied upon the counterfeit appropriation of governmental authority to deceive unsuspecting victims, the alleged parallel presidential body appears to have sought credibility by closely imitating legitimate institutions of the Nigerian State.
The lesson is clear; authentic public institutions derive their authority from law and constitutional process, whereas fraudulent organisations depend upon imitation, deception and the unlawful appropriation of governmental identity.
With the lack of legitimacy of PFIPC now conclusively established, attention should shift to how a non-existent organisation navigated official administrative processes and acquired apparent governmental recognition.
The Budget Office of the Federation should explain the reported Budget Code 0111062001.
The appropriate authority responsible for personnel management in the Federal Civil Service should clarify reports that approval was processed for 314 members of staff purportedly attached to a body that never existed.
Likewise, the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria should explain the procedures through which the organisation was apparently treated as a legitimate government entity.
There is, however, no credible basis for implicating the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President. It is implausible that Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila would knowingly authorise an appointment to the head of a non-existent presidential body only for the Presidency to subsequently repudiate it.
Moreover, the Office of the Chief of Staff neither establishes presidential advisory bodies, nor allocates office accommodation within the Federal Secretariat.
On the contrary, the Chief of Staff deserves commendation for the role reportedly played by his office in exposing what appears to have been one of the most audacious attempts in recent years to appropriate the identity and authority of the Presidency.
The central fact is no longer in dispute namely, the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) was never lawfully established.
The remaining issues concern those who conceived, promoted and represented the fictitious organisation, together with any institutional failures that enabled it to assume the appearance of legitimacy.
In particular, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi must explain the origin of the PFIPC, the basis upon which it purported to exercise presidential authority, and the representations allegedly made to government institutions, investors and members of the public.
Those matters should now be thoroughly investigated by the appropriate authorities so that anyone found culpable may be held accountable in accordance with the law.
Such accountability is essential to uphold the rule of law and reaffirm that the authority and identity of the Presidency cannot be appropriated for unauthorised purposes.
