A FRESH controversy has emerged over the existence of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) after the council received a N1.3 billion allocations in the 2026 Appropriation Act, despite the Presidency insisting that the council does not exist.
On June 11, the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, publicly described the organisation as a non-existent entity and warned the public against dealing with individuals claiming to represent it.
“It has come to the notice of the Federal Government of Nigeria and specifically the Office of the Chief of Staff… that a certain Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, under the auspices of an alleged organisation styled as the ‘Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council’ is portraying himself to the general public as having been appointed by my office,” Gbajabiamila said in a statement.
The Chief of Staff stated that no such office exists under the administration of President Bola Tinubu and that no appointment had been made in! that regard. He urged foreign missions, development partners, financial institutions and the public to disregard any claims linking the council to the Presidency.
However, documents reviewed by TheCable in the 2026 Appropriation Act paint a different picture.
The 2026 Federal Government’s budget expressly lists the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council under the Presidency, with a total allocation of N1,302,978,784.
A breakdown of the allocation shows that N802,978,783 was earmarked for personnel costs, N200,000,001 for overhead expenses, while N300 million was budgeted for capital projects.
The allocation raises questions over how a council publicly disowned by the Presidency came to be captured in the nation’s approved budget with provisions for salaries, operations and capital expenditure.
The controversy deepened on Thursday when Adeniyi Adeyemi, who claims to head the council, challenged Gbajabiamila’s position during a press conference in Abuja.
Adeyemi described the Chief of Staff’s statement as inconsistent with existing government records.
According to him, the council maintains accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), occupies office space at the Federal Secretariat, and received approval for more than 300 personnel from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
He argued that the existence of such official records would be difficult to reconcile with the Presidency’s assertion that the council had no legal or administrative existence.
Adeyemi called on President Bola Tinubu to establish an independent investigative panel to examine all government records relating to the council and determine how it came to appear in official federal documents, including the national budget.
The conflicting positions have raised concerns over the integrity of government records and the budget preparation process.
As of press time, neither the Presidency nor the Budget Office had publicly explained why the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council appears in the approved 2026 budget despite the official denial of its existence.
The development is likely to intensify scrutiny of the 2026 federal budget and may prompt demands for a comprehensive investigation into the council’s legal status, funding history and the officials responsible for its inclusion in the national appropriation.
A similar report by The ICIR in 2020 showed how the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to the President (OCEAP) got approval for the sum of N573.45 million as capital allocations in five years without a clear identity of presidential appointee answerable to the fund’s utilisation.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.