The self-styled Director-General of the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, Adeniyi Adeyemi, has fired back from police custody, insisting he did not create the disputed agency alone and dragging several powerful federal ministries, departments and agencies into the growing scandal.
In a statement issued on Sunday through his lawyer, Festus Akhigbe, Adeyemi demanded to appear before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee probing the council, insisting he deserves a fair hearing before lawmakers reach any conclusion.
His legal team warned that any report produced without hearing directly from him would be “incomplete” and a violation of his constitutional rights.
Adeyemi also rejected claims that he was a lone fraudster who single-handedly invented a government agency, arguing that multiple government institutions officially dealt with, recognised and processed documents for the council.
His lawyers alleged that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation handled documents relating to the council and facilitated office space within the Federal Secretariat.
They further claimed that the Office of the Accountant-General, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service approved budget codes, granted self-accounting status, posted civil servants to the council, opened official accounts and approved recruitment that brought in 314 personnel.
The defence also alleged that top security chiefs attended the council’s programmes, while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission allocated property to the organisation, collected processing fees and even presented a plaque of recognition to its leadership.
“If all these government agencies recognised, processed and interacted with the council, how can one man be blamed for what the entire system approved?” the lawyers asked, insisting it would have been impossible for Adeyemi to deceive every arm of government without high-level institutional backing.
They accused authorities of turning Adeyemi into a scapegoat to cover up what they described as massive bureaucratic failures and internal government approvals.
The legal team called for a wider investigation involving civil society groups, legal experts and independent observers to trace every document and approval linked to the controversial council across all affected MDAs.
The scandal deepened after the House of Representatives committee heard from several agency heads, including Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Walson-Jack, who admitted her office failed to carry out adequate checks before approving recruitment requests connected to the controversial council.
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