Concerns Over Allegations Against Presidential Chief of Staff and Calls for Reform

The recent accusations against the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu and the statements from the Presidency should make us think about reforms needed to improve services in Nigeria. No matter how you look at it, it is troubling. If you take the Presidency’s statement about the illegal status of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) and the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) at face value, it is still a problem. How can someone and an organization sneak into the system, get included in the 2026 budget, and work from the federal secretariat in Abuja for months in 2025? There are strong reasons to believe they had some support from higher-ups.

If you doubt the statement entirely, then that is also a problem, and this is where the tripartite narrative comes in. Most departments and agencies (DAs) of the Nigerian Federal Government are formed by executive orders or legislative actions. Either way, there is a process, so if the FG claims it did not appoint a Director-General or create the PFIPC and PEAC, the first question is: how did these entities come about? From my time working on the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in 2015, I learned that DAs usually fall into three groups: fully funded, partially funded, or zero-funded. Most zero-funded DAs have more control over their operations and can easily go unnoticed. A budget allocation changes this situation. Also, DAs typically operate under a Ministry; so PFIPC will fall under the Foreign Affairs Ministry, while PEAC will likely be under the Ministry of Finance.

The Presidency’s denial should be questioned by anyone who is curious. My first thought is that the denial is a way to make ‘someone’ a scapegoat, and after the resignation or conviction, everything will go back to normal. This issue should not just be seen as an allegation against the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the alleged fraudulent Director-General Mr Adeniyi Adeyemi. My second thought is that there is a fallout among parties, and to make each other look bad, these claims and counterclaims are being thrown around publicly. Remember #Adeosungate? What started as blackmail and misappropriation of public funds by National Assembly members turned into a certificate forgery issue, leading to her resignation. Resignation was scapegoating, but it did not fix the larger problem.

A key question is: why is there no single database of verified and functional MDAs in Nigeria? This is based on my experience during the TSA project in 2015. This is why the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) need to answer questions about maintaining such a database.

The media and citizens should not just accept the idea of scapegoating individuals. They must question the entire system, especially the federal frameworks that help the flow of public funds, like the Budget Office of the Federation, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, and the Central Bank of Nigeria. A key question is: why is there no single database of verified and functional MDAs in Nigeria? This is based on my experience during the TSA project in 2015. This is why the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) need to answer questions about maintaining such a database. There are debates about whether the Federal Government knows how many MDAs exist. Some say it depends on who you ask, while others believe the annual budget document is the closest to reality since every legitimate MDA is registered, captured under the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and assigned a unique budget code by the Budget Office.

This highlights why the political establishment relies on this kind of system to keep increasing the cost of governance. The more MDAs there are, the more fake allocations can be made in the budget, and the more the political elite can benefit from public funds. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on 26 February 2023 approved the restructuring of some MDAs. In 2024, it set up a committee with a 12-week deadline for the restructuring, which indicated a partial implementation of the 2012 Orosanye report, after many reviews and white papers. What has happened with this process? Interestingly, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), which raised concerns about role duplication with the supposedly non-existent PFIPC, is set to merge with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC). As of now, both NIPC and NEPC still have separate websites.

As events unfold, important questions must be asked to promote a more transparent government. Citizens, the media, and civil society organizations must identify deeper issues to ensure that government systems and policies are working effectively, beyond just blaming individuals. On one side, it seems that when there are barriers to policies aimed at cutting costs and waste, things move slowly or come to a standstill. But when similar issues arise in other cases, the political will is strong to push through changes, especially if they could increase government revenue. A case in point is the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, which was approved on 7 July 2023 and officially inaugurated on 8 August 2023. Within two years, its work led to the Nigeria Tax Reform Act, 2025, which passed all legislative hurdles and took effect in January. As events unfold, important questions must be asked to promote a more transparent government. Citizens, the media, and civil society organizations must identify deeper issues to ensure that government systems and policies are working effectively, beyond just blaming individuals.