The House of Representatives has demanded answers over how President Bola Tinubu and several senior members of his administration came to be listed as governing board members of the embattled Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), an organisation later found not to be an authorised federal government agency.
The question took centre stage on Thursday as the House ad hoc committee investigating the PFIPC summoned the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Shehu Mohammed, to explain how the agency approved seven official vehicle number plates for the organisation.
Committee Chairman, Yusuf Gagdi, said the documents presented by the PFIPC contained several red flags that ought to have triggered deeper verification before the FRSC processed the application.
According to him, one of the documents purportedly listed President Tinubu, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume; FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike; the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation; the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; and the Attorney-General of the Federation as members of the organisation’s governing board.
Several ministers, including those overseeing finance, aviation, agriculture and food security, interior, budget and national planning, marine and blue economy, police affairs, transport, works and power, were also allegedly listed.
Gagdi questioned how such an extraordinary document could have passed through an official government agency without the identities of the purported board members and the legal status of the organisation being independently verified.
The lawmaker also raised questions over the acceptance of a purported mandate that allegedly lacked recognised government security features.
“We are trying to expose the leakages so that agencies can close these gaps going forward. It is not to indict anybody,” Gagdi said.
He argued that the alleged composition of the board should, by itself, have prompted the FRSC to seek confirmation from the Presidency and other relevant authorities before granting the request.
But Mohammed defended the agency, insisting that the FRSC acted in accordance with its established procedures.
He told the committee that the agency received the PFIPC’s application on April 4, 2025, followed by a reminder on April 11. Both documents, he said, were signed by Prince Adeyemi Adeniyi, the man accused of operating the organisation.
Mohammed said the application contained documents purporting to establish the PFIPC, define its mandate and identify its governing structure, alongside details of vehicles for which the number plates were requested.
The FRSC, he explained, also visited the organisation’s office at the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja and checked its website, which operated with a federal government domain.
Those factors, he said, reinforced the impression that the organisation was a legitimate government body.
The agency also verified the chassis numbers of the vehicles before approving the number plates, according to the Corps Marshal.
The discovery that the PFIPC was not an authorised federal government agency subsequently caught the FRSC by surprise, Mohammed said.
He disclosed that the agency had begun retrieving all official number plates issued to the organisation and was tightening its verification procedures to prevent a recurrence.
The hearing comes against the backdrop of an ICPC investigation into the PFIPC, which recommended the prosecution of Adeniyi.
Adeniyi had alleged that his appointment was authorised by Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Tinubu. Gbajabiamila has denied the allegation.
Although the ICPC cleared the Presidency and the Central Bank of Nigeria of wrongdoing, its report identified institutional lapses involving several government offices and agencies, including the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Budget Office and National Information Technology Development Agency.
For the lawmakers, however, the latest hearing has opened another troubling question: how could the names of the President and some of the most powerful officials in government appear on the governing documents of an organisation that was not, in fact, an authorised federal agency?
That question now sits at the heart of the House investigation.