PFIPC Probe: HoS accepts blame for approving fake agency documents

Didi Walson-Jack, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, on Wednesday admitted that her office failed to carry out adequate due diligence before approving the staffing structure and recruitment waiver for the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, saying officials relied on forged documents presented by the promoters of the organisation.

Appearing before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the activities of the PFIPC and the N1.3 billion appropriated to it in the 2026 budget, Walson-Jack acknowledged that greater scrutiny could have exposed the fraudulent documents before approvals were granted.

She explained that her office approved the council’s authorised establishment and recruitment waiver after receiving what appeared to be a valid establishment Act and a letter appointing Adeyemi Adeniyi as Director-General.

“My office received the letter of appointment and the establishment Act and, based on those documents and also based on the interaction with the representatives of the PEAC/PFIPC, we went on to issue the authorised establishment and later the recruitment waiver,” she said.

According to her, the office processed the request because the organisation presented itself as a newly established Federal Government agency requiring an approved staffing structure and permission to recruit personnel.

She explained that the authorised establishment defines the approved staffing structure and positions, while the provisional recruitment waiver enables the organisation to recruit into those positions.

Walson-Jack added that the recruitment waiver process also involved the Budget Office of the Federation and the Federal Character Commission before the application returned to her office for final approval.

She said newly established government organisations are ordinarily required to submit the appointment letter of their chief executive officer alongside the establishment Act or other legal instrument creating the agency.

“It was on the basis of documents supplied by representatives of the PEAC/PFIPC that officials in my office proceeded with the process,” she said.

The Head of Service admitted that the experience had exposed weaknesses in her office’s verification procedures.

“Now, having seen all the facts and observed all the documents, concede that we ought to have carried out more due diligence in the discharge of the duties of the office in issuing an authorised establishment and a recruitment waiver to the PEAC/PFIPC,” she said.

“We do know that the PEAC used to exist as an ad hoc organisation on its own, and the documents that were presented had PEAC/PFIPC. However, as I said, due diligence may have detected whether those documents were actually authentic.

“So we take our responsibility, and we will definitely see that we review our processes to make them more fraud-proof.”

She noted that despite processing hundreds of similar requests from permanent and ad hoc government agencies over the years, her office had never encountered such a case.

“Over the years, this office has dealt with hundreds of requests from both permanent and ad hoc federal government agencies for authorised establishment and recruitment papers, and I would like to state that we have never encountered a situation like the current one,” she told lawmakers.

Walson-Jack disclosed that after the controversy erupted, she personally reviewed the documents and concluded that the purported establishment Act was not genuine.

She attributed her conclusion to her legal background.

“When I saw that the establishment Act was not really an authentic Act, I knew it was not original,” she said.

On the controversial appointment letter allegedly issued by Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to the President, Walson-Jack initially declined to describe it as fake, noting that it was printed on official State House letterhead and that she was not a forensic expert.

However, after Yusuf Gagdi, Chairman of the committee, asked her to compare the signature on the disputed letter with authentic signatures on official correspondence issued by the Chief of Staff, she admitted there was an obvious difference.

“Mr Chairman, I’m not a forensic expert, but I can clearly see that the signatures are not the same,” she said.

After further examining the documents presented by the committee, she added, “I’m seeing it clearly. Everything is not the same.”

The committee chairman said the conclusion was not based solely on Walson-Jack’s observations.

According to Gagdi, the Nigeria Police forensic department independently examined the disputed signature and confirmed it did not match the authentic signature of the Chief of Staff.

He said the committee had obtained nine official correspondences issued by the Office of the Chief of Staff to different government institutions, including the National Security Adviser, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force.

“The signatures on those correspondences were consistent, while the signature on the purported appointment letter was completely different,” Gagdi said.

He added that investigators found no serious attempt to imitate the authentic signature.

The lawmaker also faulted the document presented as the National Assembly Act establishing the council, describing it as defective.

“Our Act has authentication number. It has Supreme Court number. It has Gazette number. It has Gazette title. But the Act given to us here has none of those four features in the Act of the National Assembly,” he said.

Gagdi described the purported legislation as “totally mutilated,” insisting that the committee had established it was not an authentic Act of the National Assembly.

Although he acknowledged that the Head of Service accepted responsibility for the failure of her office to verify the documents, Gagdi stressed that the committee had found no evidence suggesting she deliberately participated in the alleged fraud.

Rather, he said, her office acted on documents it believed to be genuine.

“It was established that the so-called letter of appointment was fake, confirmed by different agencies, and the Act presented to the head of service was equally fake, forged by the DG; it was established,” Gagdi said.

The PFIPC controversy has centred on allegations that forged State House documents and a fake establishment Act were used to secure official recognition for the council, including approvals for staffing, recruitment and a N1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 Appropriation Act.

The alleged Director-General of the council, who claimed that his appointment letter was signed by Gbajabiamila, was arrested by operatives of the Police Intelligence Response Team in Osun State on July 14.