Documents obtained by TheCable show that the Federal Government approved a waiver in 2025 allowing the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) to recruit 300 staff despite the council later being publicly disowned by the Presidency.
PFIPC Recruitment Waiver
The Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) saga just got a new plot twist — and it’s a big one. Documents now show the Federal Government approved recruitment for 300 staff into the agency back in 2025, months before the Presidency turned around and claimed the council doesn’t even exist under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
According to an exclusive report by TheCable, the approval came via a letter dated August 7, 2025, signed by Mimi Abu, Director of Organisation Design and Development in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. Because of the government’s ongoing embargo on general civil service recruitment, the approval took the form of a special waiver.
And it wasn’t a small ask. The document authorised hiring across a sprawling list of roles: 10 directors, 20 assistant directors, dozens of administrative officers, 45 planning officers, six statisticians, 32 commercial officers, 22 investment promotion officers, 26 accountants, 10 legal officers, 13 procurement officers, 11 programme analysts and 12 information officers — plus executive officers, data processing staff, confidential secretaries, technical officers and drivers/mechanics.
Government officials tied the approval strictly to PFIPC’s 2025 establishment structure, instructing the agency to get Budget Office clearance first, comply with federal character rules, and reserve five percent of positions for persons living with disabilities.
The timing is what makes this juicy: a day after the waiver landed, PFIPC Director-General Adeniyi Adeyemi took to social media to celebrate, thanking Tinubu for backing the council’s expansion. He claimed approval to open offices in all 36 states plus the FCT, with plans for 127 offices globally to push Nigerian enterprise and attract foreign investment.
Fast forward to June, and Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila publicly declared PFIPC wasn’t recognised under this administration at all. Adeyemi pushed back hard, demanding an independent probe.
TheCable had earlier reported PFIPC pocketed a ₦1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 budget for personnel, overhead and capital spending, and that the agency operated out of an office in the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, hosting diplomats and government officials.
Adding more heat to the pot, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga confirmed the Nigeria Police Force has slapped an eight-count criminal charge on Adeyemi. For his part, Adeyemi has alleged he was pressured to hand over a cut of the agency’s take-off grant and paid hundreds of millions of naira just to secure his appointment.
So now the big question hanging over Abuja: how did an agency the Presidency now disowns manage to get official recruitment clearance and budget funding from multiple government institutions in the first place?
NEWS NOW:
