CITIZENS COMPASS— The Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), Adeniyi Adeyemi, yesterday, said that he did not single handedly create the controversial agency.
Adeyemi said that some government agencies collaborated with him to enable the agency to scale through.
Adeyemi, who is currently being held by the police, made his position known on Sunday through a statement released by his legal team. The statement, signed by Festus Akhigbe, also asked the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the council to allow him to appear and defend himself.
His lawyers insisted that denying him the opportunity to testify before the committee led by Yusuf Gagdi would amount to a violation of his constitutional rights. They argued that any findings reached without hearing directly from Adeyemi would not be complete or fair.
The statement said, “We formally request that the panel issue the necessary administrative clearance to allow our client, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, to appear in person and testify.
“Any investigative outcome or final legislative report produced without affording our client a direct hearing would be fundamentally flawed, incomplete, and a breach of the constitutional right to a fair hearing (audi alteram partem),” the statement read.
The defence team also rejected claims that Adeyemi acted alone by setting up a fake government agency. They described efforts to portray him as “an isolated, mastermind impostor” as misleading.
According to the lawyers, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation handled documents connected to the council and also assisted in providing office space within the Federal Secretariat.
The statement added, “We, the legal defence team of Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, issue this public statement to set the record straight following recent developments, our client’s current police detention, and the ongoing legislative hearings.
“The Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation: Formally approved the establishment structure and granted recruitment waivers that enabled the onboarding of 314 personnel.”
The lawyers further claimed that senior security officials attended events organised by the council. They also alleged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission allocated a property to the council, requested a processing fee and later presented its leadership with a plaque in recognition.
Questioning why only Adeyemi was being blamed, the defence stated, “If the SGF, the Accountant-General, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Head of Service, the Budget Office, the EFCC, the National Assembly, and the heads of Nigeria’s primary security architecture all verified, processed, funded, and officially interacted with this agency over an extended period, how can a single citizen, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, be held uniquely responsible for failing to detect what the entire apparatus of the State validated?
“It is an administrative impossibility for an unassisted individual to mislead every arm of the Federal Government simultaneously without official, high-level institutional sanction.”
The legal team maintained that their client was unfairly being blamed for failures that involved government institutions. They said he had become “a scapegoat to cover up deep-seated institutional lapses, procedural breakdowns and internal approvals within the government structure.”
They also called for a wider and more transparent investigation into the matter. According to the statement, “While we note the ongoing proceedings by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee and investigating bodies, justice cannot be served by prosecuting the mouthpiece while ignoring the state machinery that built, budgeted, and bureaucratically birthed the entity.
“We reiterate our call for a truly comprehensive, multi-stakeholder panel that includes civil society, legal experts, and independent observers to audit the complete paper trail across all involved ministries, departments, and agencies,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives committee has continued its investigation by inviting heads of government agencies to testify. During one of the hearings, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Walson-Jack, admitted that her office did not carry out sufficient checks before approving recruitment requests linked to the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
—GWG
