Fake Agency Controversy: CNPP Calls For Accountability, Demands Sack Of Top Officials

The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has called for the sack of top Government Officials and the resignation of President Bola Tinubu over alleged mismanagement of the Multi-Billion Naira ‘Fake Agency’ scandal, saying Nigeria is not a Banana Republic:

The CNPP stated that it watched with deep shock, profound disappointment and mounting national embarrassment the unfolding scandal surrounding the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an agency now publicly described by the Presidency as “fake” or “fictitious” notwithstanding its inclusion in the 2026 Appropriation Acts signed into law by President Tinubu.

“What should have been a simple case of administrative correction has now blown into one of the greatest self-inflicted international embarrassment in the history of Nigeria’s democracy due to the incompetence and poor crisis management exhibited by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government,” Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Comrade James Ezema said in a statement made available to Journalists in Kaduna.

“If Nigeria was a serious country with working institutions and a culture of accountability, the CNPP says in no uncertain terms that heads of critical government agencies and top political appointees implicated by this scandal would have resigned or been immediately relieved of their duties pending investigations,” he said.

Ezema said: “Nigerians have been told that for months, one Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew allegedly operated a federal agency that did not exist; occupied office space within the Federal Secretariat in Abuja; allegedly held meetings with ambassadors and foreign nationals; corresponded with government institutions; and allegedly opened bank accounts, including one with the Central Bank of Nigeria, all under the guise of being the Director-General of the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.”

He added that the matter got even more disturbing when documents emerged showing that this same “non-existent” agency was captured in the 2026 Appropriation Act with over N1.3 billion in budgetary allocations, including funds for salaries, allowances and even a proposed World Investment Summit.

“This is not just a scandal,” he said, “it is an indictment of the entire machinery of government,” adding, “a federal budget does not write itself, budgetary allocations do not drop down from heaven, every line item in the national budget passes through rigorous bureaucratic and political processes.

“The budget is prepared by the executive, scrutinised by the Federal Executive council chaired by the President, presented to the National Assembly by the President, debated and approved by lawmakers and eventually signed into law by the President”, the CNPP statement added.

Ezema further stressed that “therefore, the Federal Government cannot, in one breath sign an Appropriation Act that contains an agency and in another breath issue a press statement declaring the same agency fake, illegal or non-existent.”

Such conduct depicts Nigeria as a nation that does not know its laws. It does not respect its laws and its constitutional processes,” he said.

The CNPP stressed that “by virtue of its inclusion in the 2026 Appropriation Act and the presidential assent granted to that Act, the agency acquired legal recognition for the purpose of the budget year unless and until the relevant provisions of the law are amended or repealed by the National Assembly.”

“By a press statement a government cannot nullify an Act of Parliament. No presidential aide has the constitutional authority to nullify a law duly passed by Congress and signed by the president by simply declaring so in public. The Federal Government may choose to shut down the agency or do away with it altogether but it cannot by law declare an agency contained in a subsisting Act of Parliament as “fake.” “To do so will be to ridicule the National Assembly, undermine the sanctity of the country’s laws and project Nigeria before the international community as a Banana Republic where state institutions have collapsed”, the statement emphasised.

“More embarrassing still is the way this scandal has been handled. The CNPP said a competent and responsible administration with effective crisis management mechanisms would have simply announced the scrapping of the agency, initiated an immediate investigation and transmitted an Executive Bill to the National Assembly seeking an amendment to the 2026 Appropriation Act to reflect the government’s decision.

“That would have been an example of leadership, responsibility and respect for constitutional processes. “Instead, the APC-led Federal Government has taken a path that has embarrassed Nigeria internationally, amplified doubts about the country’s institutional credibility and further strengthened the already negative global perception of Nigeria as a corruption-prone nation,” the statement also added.

The group lamented, “International partners and foreign investors are now asking uncomfortable questions. What other shady things are hiding in government finances if an agency that doesn’t even exist can make it into a signed federal budget? What does this tell us about Nigeria’s governance systems if an agency that is supposedly fictitious can get office space in the Federal Secretariat and interact with key government institutions? “If a fake agency could even get through the Budget Office, the Federal Executive Council, the National Assembly and get presidential assent, where exactly are the safeguards that government always boasts about?”

“These are not questions of opposition; they are questions of governance,” it said. The real scandal is no longer one individual on trial. The real scandal is institutions’ failure. The real scandal is incompetence of those who are in charge of the management of the country. The real scandal is the web of officials whose acts and omissions supposedly legitimized an allegedly non-existent agency.”

Consequently, the CNPP called for the following; immediate dismissal or resignation of all public officers whose actions and inactions enabled this monumental national embarrassment, including:
. the President’s Chief of Staff,the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, if an account is indeed opened for an alleged non-existent agency under the watch of the apex bank,appropriate officials in the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.relevant officials in the Federation’s Budget Office, .members of the Federal Executive Council who reviewed and approved the budget proposal, ministers and heads of agencies that processed or interacted with documents related to the agency and,principal officers and committee chairmen in the National Assembly who managed the budget process and did not detect the alleged anomaly.

“The CNPP further states that should President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fail to immediately sack these officials and begin a transparent process of accountability, then he must bear full responsibility for this unprecedented governance failure and tender his resignation,” the statement stressed.