President Bola Tinubu has directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, the ICPC, to thoroughly investigate the activities of the alleged Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and all related matters nationwide. According to Channels Television, the presidential directive brings the anti-corruption agency into a controversy over a body whose legitimacy, and even its very existence, are in question.
At the centre of the affair is a man identified as Mr Adeyemi, who is alleged to be behind the body and who maintains that he was appointed to lead it. Officials have indicated that such a council does not formally exist, and questions have been raised over how the alleged agency came to operate, with reports that it was assigned rooms at the federal secretariat and generated correspondence touching on government ministries.
Adeyemi has denied any wrongdoing. Facing forgery charges himself, he has said he is confident that the courts will determine the truth and clear his name. He has in turn accused the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, of demanding money in exchange for the appointment, an accusation that has sharpened the dispute between the two men.
For his part, Gbajabiamila has threatened a 10 billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Adeyemi, alongside a damages claim and a court order aimed at preventing further publications. The action follows allegations that linked him to bribery and murder, which his side has described as baseless, malicious and damaging to his reputation, warning that failure to retract them would trigger legal steps.
The controversy, which the broadcaster said has gotten to another dimension, ranges over accusations of impersonation, forgery, abuse of official identity and the exploitation of institutional weaknesses. The scale of the threatened claim and the gravity of the accusations on both sides have drawn wide attention, raising broader questions about how a disputed body could reportedly interact with parts of the federal bureaucracy.
By ordering the ICPC to examine the alleged council and all related matters across the country, the presidency has signalled that it intends to treat the case as a national issue rather than an isolated quarrel. The investigation is now expected to test the competing claims of those involved and to establish how, if at all, the body operated within the machinery of government.