The Senate is expected to address the controversy surrounding the N1.3bn allocation to the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council in the 2026 Appropriation Act as plenary resumes on Tuesday.
This is as The PUNCH gathered that a forged appointment letter bearing a falsified signature of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, was accepted at the Civil Service Headquarters without adequate verification, securing Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew an office at the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja and giving the controversial agency the appearance of government legitimacy for over a year.
Multiple sources in the Presidency and the civil service with first-hand knowledge of the scandal, who spoke to The PUNCH on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of ongoing proceedings, said the scandal would have been nipped in the bud save for bureaucratic safeguards that failed at multiple points in the Budget Office, the House of Representatives, and the Civil Service Headquarters.
The sources argued that the failure to properly scrutinise the appointment letter cascaded into the controversial Presidential Council ensnaring diplomatic missions, government ministries, the National Assembly and private individuals.
