By Opeyemi Adelakun
The detained self-acclaimed Director-General of the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, Adeniyi Adeyemi, has denied allegations that he single-handedly created the disputed government agency, alleging instead that several ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government officially recognised, processed or interacted with the council.
Adeyemi, who is currently in police custody, made the claims through his legal team in a statement issued on Sunday and signed by Festus Akhigbe, while demanding to personally appear before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the council.
His lawyers argued that denying him the opportunity to testify before the committee chaired by Yusuf Gagdi would amount to a violation of his constitutional right to a fair hearing and could undermine the credibility of the panel’s findings.
“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 said.
The defence rejected attempts to portray Adeyemi as the sole architect of the controversial council, describing such claims as misleading.
According to the statement, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation acknowledged documents relating to the council and facilitated office allocation for it within the Federal Secretariat.
The lawyers further alleged that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria acted on official documentation by issuing administrative budget codes, granting self-accounting status, posting federal civil servants to the council and opening operational bank accounts.
They also claimed that the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation approved the council’s organisational structure and granted recruitment waivers that enabled the employment of 314 personnel.
The statement further alleged that senior security officials attended programmes organised by the council, while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission allocated office accommodation to it, requested processing fees and presented a plaque of recognition to its leadership.
The legal team argued that the level of interaction between the council and government institutions made it impossible for one individual to have acted alone.
“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?” the statement said.
“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 defence maintained that Adeyemi was being used as “a scapegoat” to conceal what it described as institutional failures, procedural lapses and official approvals that facilitated the council’s operations.
It urged authorities to establish a broader investigative panel involving civil society groups, legal experts and independent observers to examine what it described as the complete paper trail across all ministries, departments and agencies connected with the council.
“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,” the lawyers said.
They added that only a comprehensive investigation involving all institutions linked to the council would establish the full facts surrounding its operations.
The controversy comes as heads of several government agencies continue to appear before the House committee investigating the council.
Among them was the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Walson-Jack, who admitted before the panel that her office failed to conduct adequate due diligence before approving recruitment requests associated with the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council.
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