The Senate and the House of Representatives yesterday took different positions on the probe into how money was appropriated in the 2026 Budget for the fictitious federal agency – the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).

On Tuesday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to conduct a comprehensive probe into the entire PFIPC saga, in which one Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew claims to be the agency’s Director-General, supposedly appointed by the President.

During plenary yesterday, the Senate decided to wait for the outcome of the executive-initiated probe before taking any further action.

But the House of Representatives, after a debate, set up a 12-man panel to investigate how N1.303 billion was included in the 2026 Budget for the agency.

At the Senate, a motion of urgent national importance by Senator Suleiman Kawu (APC, Kano South) was raised under a point of order during plenary.

It was titled: “Urgent Need to Investigate the Budgetary Allocation, Operations and Controversy Surrounding the Purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) to Safeguard the Integrity of the Senate and the Federal Government.”

Presenting the motion, Kawu said the controversy surrounding the council posed a threat to the integrity of the Senate, the credibility of the National Assembly and the legislature’s constitutional powers of oversight and appropriation.

He said the public had been inundated in recent weeks with allegations and counter-allegations over the existence and activities of the entity known as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

The lawmaker urged the Senate to condemn what he described as administrative lapses, internal collaboration or fraudulent schemes that allegedly led to the inclusion of a purportedly unauthorised entity under Budget Code 0111062001 in the 2026 Appropriation Act.

He also sought a resolution directing the Senate Committees on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions, and Appropriations to investigate the circumstances surrounding the inclusion of the council in the 2026 Budget.

According to him, the investigation should establish how N1.303 billion was proposed, scrutinised, justified and approved during the appropriation process; identify the ministries, departments and agencies, as well as officials responsible for its inclusion; and determine whether any funds had been released, committed or spent under the budget line, including whether any bank account had been opened or operated for the purpose.

Because the motion was raised under a point of order, there was no need for it to be seconded.

Following the presentation, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, who presided over the session, ruled that the matter should not be debated.

Jibrin said the Executive had already taken steps to address the issue, noting that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had directed the ICPC to investigate the controversy.

He urged the Senate to await the outcome of the Executive investigation before taking any further action on the matter.

Adopting a motion of urgent national importance sponsored by Plateau lawmaker Yusuf Adamu Gagdi, the House said the committee would have the mandate to trace the budgetary provision from the Executive’s proposal through committee consideration to passage, and identify the stage at which the agency was introduced into the budget cycle.

The committee is also to invite the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning and the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation to clarify the verification procedures applied before new entities are admitted into the budget.

The investigation, which is to last four weeks, is also to verify all ministries, departments, agencies and other bodies reflected in the 2025 and 2026 Appropriation frameworks against their instruments of establishment, and receive briefings from the relevant security and anti-corruption agencies without prejudice to the proceedings pending before the Federal High Court.

The House asked the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to confirm that no releases have been made and that no warrants would be honoured, in respect of any provision attributable to the entity pending the conclusion of investigations.

It also requested that, in line with Sections 19, 30 and 50 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, the Budget Office of the Federation submit to the National Assembly, ahead of the presentation of each Appropriation Bill, a comprehensive list of all ministries, departments, agencies and other bodies proposed for funding, indicating the instrument establishing each, so that no entity not so listed and certified is admitted into the Appropriation Bill.

The ad hoc committee is headed by the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abubakar Kabir Bichi.

Other members include Chief Whip Usman Bello Kumo, Minority Leader Fred Agbedi, and Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, James Faleke, among others.

Leading the debate on the motion, Gagdi said that between November 2024 and October 2025, an entity styling itself the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) operated from the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase III, Abuja, and interacted with various organs of government, although the Federal Government has since declared that no such agency was lawfully established.

He said the circumstances surrounding the entity, including allegations of forgery and impersonation, are the subject of ongoing investigations and criminal proceedings before the Federal High Court, Abuja, adding that the motion neither prejudges nor seeks to pre-empt those processes.

According to him, the entity relied on a document purporting to be an enactment codified as “Chapter N2117, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria”, whereas the records of the National Assembly disclose no Bill establishing such a council.

Gagdi added that the Laws of the Federation contain no Chapter N2117, noting that “the nearest designation is Chapter N117, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission Act, the very statute whose mandate the entity purported to duplicate, making the falsity of the purported instrument apparent on the face of public statutory records.”

“Reports indicate that a budgetary provision in excess of N1.3 billion attributable to the entity found its way into the 2026 Appropriation framework, raising the fundamental question, which falls squarely within the constitutional remit of the House, of how a body without any authentic instrument of establishment could enter the federal budget, whether through the Executive proposal or during legislative consideration, and at what point the existing scrutiny safeguards failed to detect it.

“The ease with which a single unestablished entity progressed through official processes suggests a systemic vulnerability rather than an isolated lapse.

“It cannot be excluded that other fictitious entities are reflected in past or current budget frameworks, a possibility that threatens the credibility of the Appropriation Act and the integrity of the National Assembly’s appropriation function.

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, already obliges the Executive to account to the National Assembly, including through Section 19, which prescribes the documents that must accompany the annual budget; Section 30, which requires quarterly budget implementation reports to the Joint Finance Committee of the National Assembly; and Section 50, which requires quarterly and consolidated annual budget execution reports. This is in addition to Sections 80, 81, 88 and 89 of the Constitution, which vest in the National Assembly control over public funds and the power to investigate their disbursement.”

Contributing to the motion, Ahmed Satomi (APC, Borno) said the issue of the council should be confronted frontally because it had affected the integrity of democratic practice and the budgetary process.

He said the creation of the agency without the approval of the National Assembly was a very serious issue that should concern all Nigerians, wondering how it found its way into the national budget.

He called for a thorough investigation and prosecution of anyone found culpable.

Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu said it was embarrassing that people could move around so boldly with a non-existent agency, revealing that he was one of those whose photograph appeared in the media with the purported Director-General.

Kalu said the development implies that “a beautiful letterhead bearing the Presidency’s logo or an address at the Federal Secretariat is not enough to prove the legality or existence of any agency.”

The police have charged the purported Director-General of the agency, Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew, before the Federal High Court on counts of forgery, impersonation and conspiracy. (The Nation)