While the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, admitted to vetting failure, the House panel declared the PFIPC DG’s appointment letter and the Establishment Act, fake
The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the alleged operations of the disputed Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) has declared as fake the appointment letter presented by the council’s alleged Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi, saying forensic investigations and official records established that the documents were forged.
The committee’s Chairman, Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, disclosed this on Wednesday during the continuation of the investigative hearing at the National Assembly in Abuja, where the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, also admitted that her office failed to conduct adequate due diligence before approving recruitment requests linked to the organisation.
Gagdi said the committee’s findings were supported by multiple government agencies, including the Nigeria Police Force’s forensic department, which examined the disputed appointment letter.
“It was established that the so-called letter of appointment was fake, confirmed by different agencies, and the Act presented to the Head of Service was equally fake, forged by the DG; it was established,” Rep. Gagdi said.
He explained that the committee’s conclusion did not rely solely on the testimony of the Head of the Civil Service but was reinforced by forensic evidence.
According to him, the police forensic department analysed the signature on the purported appointment letter and found that it did not match the authentic signature of the Chief of Staff to the President.
To further verify its findings, the committee obtained nine official correspondences issued by the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President and addressed to various government institutions, including the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force.
Gagdi said the signatures on all the official documents were consistent, while the one appearing on Adeyemi’s appointment letter was “completely different.”
“The evidence available to the committee shows that whoever prepared the appointment letter did not even make a serious attempt to replicate the signature of the Chief of Staff,” he said.
The lawmaker further alleged that the forgery extended beyond the appointment letter to the document presented as the Act of the National Assembly establishing the council.
According to him, every authentic Act passed by the National Assembly contains identifiable features such as an authentication number, Supreme Court number, Gazette number and Gazette title.
“Our Act has authentication number. It has Supreme Court number. It has Gazette number. It has Gazette title. But the Act given to us here has none of those four features in the Act of the National Assembly,” Rep. Gagdi stated.
He described the purported legislation as “totally mutilated” and maintained that the committee had established that it was not an authentic Act of the National Assembly, while stressing that the panel was yet to conclude its investigation.
At the hearing, Walson-Jack accepted responsibility for lapses in the vetting process that enabled her office to issue an authorised establishment and recruitment waiver to the organisation.
She admitted that her office relied on documents presented by representatives of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council without independently verifying their authenticity.
“My office received the Letter of Appointment and the Establishment Act and, based on those documents and also based on the interaction with the representatives of the PEAC and PFICP, we went on to issue the Authorised Establishment and later the Recruitment Waiver,” she told the committee.
The Head of Service acknowledged that more rigorous checks should have been conducted before the approvals were granted.
“We now, having seen all the facts and observed all the documents, concede that we ought to have carried out more due diligence in the discharge of the duties of the office in issuing an Authorised Establishment and a Recruitment Waiver to the PEAC/PFICP,” she said.
She explained that the existence of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council as an ad hoc body may have contributed to the confusion.
“We do know that the PEAC used to exist as an ad hoc organisation on its own, and the documents that were presented had PEAC/PFICP. However, as I said, due diligence may have detected whether those documents were actually authentic,” Walson-Jack added.
The committee is investigating allegations of fraud surrounding the activities of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council and the circumstances under which it allegedly obtained official approvals and recognition from government institutions.
