Atiku to Tinubu: Name insiders who helped ‘PFIPC DG’

Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the 2027 polls, Atiku Abubakar, has told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to name the insiders who helped the self-proclaimed Director General of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC).

Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to the former Vice President, Frank Shaibu, made this known in a statement.

In the statement on Friday, Abubakar described the interim report of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on the PFIPC as an indictment that raises more questions than it answers.

He said the Presidency cannot parade the report as an exoneration when the same report reportedly acknowledges “negligence and connivance” within government processes that enabled the alleged fraud.

The statement said: “According to the findings, one individual allegedly forged a presidential appointment letter, created a fictitious federal agency, appropriated offices and instruments of the former Presidential Economic Advisory Council, opened bank accounts using forged legislative instruments, engaged in widespread impersonation, and created two additional fictitious government agencies.

“Yet Nigerians are being told that State House systems were ‘above board’.

“Both claims cannot comfortably coexist.

“If there was connivance, who connived? 

“If public officers were negligent, who are they? 

“Who granted access to government offices? 

“Who recognised this supposed Director-General? 

“Who enabled him to operate within the machinery of government?”

Abubakar said the ICPC’s reported recommendation of sanctions against public officers whose negligence facilitated the operation demolishes any attempt to portray the scandal as the work of a lone impostor.

He added: “A fake agency does not walk into government offices by itself. 

“A forged appointment letter does not validate itself. 

“Bank accounts do not open themselves. 

“Behind every door that opened, every process that was bypassed and every official instrument that was accessed was a human being. 

“Name them.”

Abubakar maintained that the unanswered questions surrounding the identities of insiders who allegedly facilitated the fraud further justify the demand for an independent panel of inquiry to undertake a comprehensive investigation.

He said: “What the ICPC Interim Report has done, in the main, is to shield the identities of shadow operatives within the presidency who allegedly connived to enable the fraud. 

“Their identities should be made public and their roles fully explained. 

“Nigerians deserve to know who did what, who authorised what, and who opened the doors that made this possible.”

Abubakar added that an interim report cannot be converted into a presidential certificate of innocence while investigations into possible collaborators and associated bank accounts remain ongoing.

He said the ultimate test of the government’s sincerity is openness, particularly now that the central figure in the saga, Adeyemi, has publicly challenged the government by asking to appear before a National Assembly investigation broadcast live on national television.

He said: “The Presidency now has nowhere left to hide. 

𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖/𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖