INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE, PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE SCANDAL OF A “NONEXISTENT ” AGENCY.

By Harrison I. Okao, PhD

Director General, Centre for Good Governance, Development and Socio Cultural Advocacy.

The controversy surrounding the alleged creation and operation of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council has moved far beyond the boundaries of an ordinary criminal case. It has become a serious national test of the credibility of Nigeria’s institutions, the vigilance of its oversight structures, and the sincerity of government’s commitment to accountability. At its heart lies a disturbing question that no responsible democracy should ignore: how could an agency the Federal Government says never legally existed allegedly function so openly within the machinery of the Nigerian state?

According to the Presidency, the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council was never lawfully established. Yet the man identified as its alleged Director General, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who has denied wrongdoing, was reportedly able to operate from the Federal Secretariat, interact with ministers and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, receive foreign delegations, correspond with government institutions, allegedly open an account with the Central Bank of Nigeria, and reportedly secure a budgetary allocation of about ₦1.3 billion for an agency the government now insists was never created by law. Even if some of these allegations are eventually disproved in court, the larger institutional question remains. How does a body that officially does not exist allegedly gain office space, bureaucratic recognition, financial access, and operational visibility at the highest levels of government?

This is why the matter must not be reduced to the fate of one individual standing trial. Government agencies do not emerge from private imagination. They are not roadside enterprises that can be launched by ambition, influence or audacity. They are created through constitutional and statutory procedures involving documentation, executive approvals, administrative processing, financial vetting, and legislative scrutiny. If the Presidency is correct that the agency never legally existed, then the Nigerian people deserve a full and honest explanation of how such a structure was allegedly allowed to function. Who allocated office space at the Federal Secretariat? Who approved the deployment or attachment of civil servants to the office? Who authorized the use of government insignia and official correspondence? Who approved the opening of any account connected with the agency at the Central Bank of Nigeria? Who processed its budget proposal, and through what channels did it allegedly find its way into appropriation discussions? If public funds were earmarked for it, did no one in the bureaucracy, the Ministry of Finance, the Budget Office, or the National Assembly ask the most basic question: by what law does this agency exist?

These are not partisan questions, and they should not be dismissed as political noise. They are questions of governance, process, institutional discipline and public accountability. They go to the very heart of how a modern state is expected to function. When systems are working, one individual cannot simply walk into the structure of government and create the appearance of state authority. There are supposed to be safeguards at every stage: legal vetting, civil service procedures, financial controls, security checks, budget scrutiny, and parliamentary oversight. If all of these mechanisms were bypassed, then Nigeria is not merely dealing with an isolated scandal. It is confronting evidence of systemic weakness at the centre of the state.

Reports indicate that the Office of the Chief of Staff raised the alarm, after which the Nigeria Police Force commenced investigation and filed charges before the Federal High Court. The Department of State Services also reportedly participated in the investigation. The courts will, in due course, determine the criminal liability of those accused, and that judicial process must be respected. But the legal case alone cannot answer the broader public questions raised by this affair. A criminal prosecution may tell us whether an individual forged documents, impersonated authority, or obtained money by false pretence. It may not, by itself, explain how the institutions of government allegedly became so porous that a questionable entity could move through them with such ease. That explanation must come from government itself, and it must come in a manner that is transparent, verifiable and convincing.

The public debate has also taken a more delicate turn because several key offices connected, directly or indirectly, to the matter are occupied by officials from the same ethnic background, including President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso, Finance Minister Wale Edun, DSS Director General Oluwatosin Ajayi, EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede, and the Inspector General of Police. Ethnicity, by itself, is not evidence of guilt, complicity or wrongdoing, and it would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise. However, politics is not governed by facts alone; it is also shaped by public perception. Where public trust is already fragile, even the appearance of internal protection, selective silence or institutional shielding can deepen suspicion and erode confidence. That is why this matter demands an investigation that is not only fair, but visibly fair; not only lawful, but publicly credible.

The real issue, therefore, is not ethnicity. The real issue is institutional integrity. It is the question of whether the Nigerian state still possesses the internal discipline to protect itself from infiltration, manipulation, and administrative fraud. If one individual could allegedly create and operate a federal agency under the nose of the system, then the danger extends far beyond this single controversy. It raises a frightening possibility: that the weakness of institutions may be inviting more audacious abuse in the future. Today it is an allegedly fictitious federal agency. Tomorrow it could be a phantom intervention fund, a fabricated regulatory commission, or a false state backed by forged approvals and public money. A republic that cannot defend the authenticity of its own institutions is a republic inviting constitutional embarrassment.

This is why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must treat the matter as a defining test of his administration’s seriousness about reform. It is not enough for the Presidency to distance itself from the alleged agency and allow the criminal process to take its course. The President must go further. He must order a comprehensive institutional audit of how the alleged agency gained access to office accommodation, official channels, financial systems, bureaucratic recognition and possible budgetary processing. If negligence, collusion, abuse of office or deliberate misconduct is established against any public official, then the response must be firm and impartial. Accountability cannot stop at the lowest rung while the gatekeepers of the system escape scrutiny. A democracy loses moral authority when only the visible actor is prosecuted while those who enabled, ignored or benefited from the abuse remain untouched.

African political history offers enough warnings about what happens when institutions are weakened and public office becomes vulnerable to manipulation. Nelson Mandela once observed that “a critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy.” The same can be said of accountable institutions. Without them, governance decays into opacity, and opacity eventually breeds impunity. Julius Nyerere warned that “leadership must not be an opportunity to accumulate wealth, but a responsibility to serve the people.” Public office, in other words, is a trust, not a private franchise. And Kwame Nkrumah’s reminder remains relevant to every African state battling institutional decline: “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you.” Yet political power without ethical discipline, legal restraint and institutional honesty is not a kingdom of service; it is merely a marketplace of influence.

Nigeria’s democracy will not be strengthened merely by prosecuting alleged offenders. It will be strengthened when institutions become too transparent to be manipulated, too disciplined to be infiltrated, and too accountable to be captured by private ambition. The lesson of this scandal is not simply that a “fake” agency may have existed in the shadows of government. The deeper lesson is that our systems may be dangerously vulnerable to those who understand how to exploit silence, hierarchy and weak oversight. That should alarm every citizen, regardless of party, region or religion.

In the end, the credibility of the Republic is what is on trial. A government that cannot explain how a nonexistent agency allegedly secured space, access, recognition and funding within its own structure has a duty to answer to the nation. The burden is not only to prosecute; it is to explain, to reform and to reassure. Nigeria does not merely need convictions if wrongdoing is proven. It needs institutional cleansing. It needs an honest reckoning with how public systems fail. Above all, it needs a leadership willing to prove that the rule of law is not a slogan reserved for opponents, but a principle that applies equally to everyone within the orbit of power. Only then can the Republic claim that it is under law and not under manipulation.