PFIPC Scandal: Gbajabiamila targeted to discredit Tinubu-led government – Wike + Video

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has described the allegations linking the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, to the alleged fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) as part of plans to give a bad name to the current administration.

He claimed those closest to the seat of power, particularly chiefs of staff, secretaries to the government and those in charge of finance, are often deliberately targeted by persons seeking to embarrass a sitting government.

The former two-term governor of Rivers State made the remarks during his monthly media briefing, which was held in Abuja on Thursday.

He was reacting to the corruption saga involving the purported Director-General of the controversial PFIPC, Adeniyi Adeyemi, and Gbajabiamila.

According to Wike: “I was the Chief of Staff to the government and without any prejudice, I know the Chief of Staff very well and without prejudice he did not.

“There are people you target in government to give a bad name to your boss. You see the Chief of Staff, the person in charge of finance, and Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

“If you want to embarrass any government, these are the targets first, if you get to the Chief of Staff the government would have been embarrassed.

“Does it make sense that an agency that does not exist, he would now tell you to give him money, it’s madness.

“Is it the responsibility of the Chief of Staff to create budget? if the young man knows that he’s correct, why are you running away?

“How can you come out to make such a statement and you are running away from your life, he needs to be interrogated.”

Wike also gave an account of what he described as a separate blackmail attempt targeting his own family, in which he said unnamed persons falsely claimed his son had helped facilitate a payment involving government land, an allegation he said was fabricated and timed to embarrass him as FCT minister.

He said his chief security officer moved to have the accuser arrested after the claim surfaced and that the timeline given by the accuser did not match his son’s actual travel movements on the date in question.

Recounting an approach made to him to quietly resolve the matter, Wike said he rebuffed the suggestion outright.

“Why not settle? Settle what? This is blackmail. I would not allow that. I wouldn’t do it,” he said.

He questioned why anyone should treat unproven claims against public officials as something to be managed rather than investigated while also dismissing claims that Adeyemi is in hiding for fear of his life.

“Which life? Is your life bigger than the lives of other people in the country?” he asked, arguing that allegations of this nature should be probed to their conclusion rather than used as grounds to demand the removal of an official.

Responding to calls by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for opposition parties to be involved in the investigation ordered by President Tinubu, Wike rejected the suggestion.

He said: “The demand by Atiku and co is neither here nor there and it’s rubbish. When he was the VP was it what he did? Let him hold on, you say that you will be elected as president, when you come, if ever you will come then you can introduce those things that you want to introduce.”

𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖/𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖