The House of Representatives has declared that appointment letter being paraded by the controversial Director General of the disputed Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) Adeniyi Adeyemi as fake.
Penpushing reports that the Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Yusuf Gagdi, made the declaration on Wednesday in Abuja during the continued investigation into the alleged operation of the council and the circumstances surrounding its recognition by government agencies.
The chairman the discovery of the fake appointment letter followed further revelations before the committee investigating the council, adding that the committee’s findings, as well as evidence from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and the Nigeria Police Force, showed that the appointment letter purportedly signed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, did not bear the same signature as genuine correspondence from the office.
Penpushing further reports that he stated that the Act, allegedly presented to government officials as the legal instrument establishing the council, was not an authentic Act of the National Assembly.
The development comes as the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Didi Walson-Jack, appeared before the committee for the second time to make further clarifications on the role of her office in granting the disputed council an authorised establishment and recruitment waiver.
Penpushing also reports that Walson-Jack explained that the controversy arose from interactions between her office and representatives of what was presented to officials as the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) and the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation said the organisation presented itself as a newly established federal government agency and sought approval for an authorised establishment and a provisional recruitment waiver.
Penpushing reports that she stated that such requests are processed when a new federal government organisation requires an approved staffing structure and permission to recruit personnel.
The Head of Service explained that the authorised establishment sets out the approved staffing structure and positions, while the provisional recruitment waiver enables the organisation to recruit into those positions.
Penpushing further reports that Walson-Jack said the recruitment waiver process also involved the Budget Office of the Federation and the Federal Character Commission before the application returned to her office for the final waiver.
The Head of Service listed the documents normally required from newly established organisations to include a letter of appointment of the chief executive officer or principal officer and the establishment Act or other legal instrument creating the organisation.
Penpushing also reports that she said it was on the basis of documents supplied by representatives of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) and the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), that officials in her office proceeded with the process.
“Over the years, this office has dealt with hundreds of requests from both permanent and ad hoc federal government agencies for authorised establishment and recruitment papers, and I would like to state that we have never encountered a situation like the current one,” she told the committee’, she said.
Penpushing reports that Walson-Jack said the experience had exposed shortcomings in the verification process of her office, and acknowledged that more due diligence should have been conducted before the documents were relied upon to issue an authorised establishment and recruitment waiver.
The head of service explained that, she personally reviewed the documents after the controversy surrounding the council emerged and concluded that the purported establishment Act was not genuine, stressing that her nearly three decades of legal practice enabled her to identify inconsistencies in the document.
Penpushing further reports she said the establishment Act was not really an authentic Act, Iand that she knew it was not original; however, she initially declined to conclusively describe the appointment letter as fake, explaining that it was printed on State House letterhead and that she was not a forensic expert.
The Chairman of the ad hoc committee when asked Walson-Jack to compare the signature on the purported appointment letter with the signature on correspondence genuinely issued by the Chief of Staff to the President, said there was an obvious difference.
“When I saw that the establishment Act was not really an authentic Act, I knew it was not original. Mr Chairman, I’m not a forensic expert, but I can clearly see that the signatures are not the same,” Walson-Jack replied.
Penpushing also reports that Gagdi then reminded her that the committee had interacted with the police forensic department, which had also examined the signatures, adding that the police had confirmed that the signatures were different and that, in their assessment, there was not even an attempt to imitate the authentic signature.
The Head of Service agreed with the committee chairman after examining the document, and that she sees the document clearly emphasizing that everything was not the same, however, Gagdi said the committee’s conclusion was not based solely on the assessment of the head of service.
Penpushing reports that he said the police forensic department had also examined the disputed signature and confirmed that it did not correspond with the genuine signature of the Chief of Staff to the President.
The chairman said the committee had obtained nine separate correspondences from the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President addressed to different government institutions, including the National Security Adviser, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Security Services and the Nigeria Police Force.
Penpushing further reports that he said, the signatures on those correspondences were consistent, while the signature on the purported appointment letter was completely different.
The chairman stated that the evidence available to the committee showed that the person who prepared the appointment letter did not even make a serious attempt to replicate the signature of the Chief of Staff, adding that the alleged forgery extended beyond the appointment letter.
Penpushing also reports that he told the committee that the document presented as the Act of the National Assembly establishing the council was also defective, explaining that genuine Acts of the National Assembly have identifiable authentication features, including an authentication number, a Gazette number, and a Gazette title.
The Chairman of the ad hoc committee said none of those features appeared on the purported Act presented to government officials.
“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,” he said.
Penpushing reports that Gagdi consequently described the purported establishment Act as “totally mutilated” and said the committee had established that it was not an Act of the National Assembly.
The chairman said the committee was being deliberate in its word choice and had not yet presented its final findings, while Walson-Jack accepted responsibility for the failure of officials in her office to detect the allegedly false documents before acting on them.
Penpushing further reports that she said the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had followed its established procedures in processing the request, but acknowledged that the process was not sufficiently robust to detect the fraudulent documents.
“We are really, really surprised that we were not able to detect the PEAC, and PFICP has actually given us a false establishment Act, and now we have proved a false letter of appointment,” she said.
The Head of Service added that the office would review its procedures to make them more resistant to fraud, while Gagdi, however, pointed out that the committee’s findings did not necessarily imply that the head of service deliberately participated in the alleged fraud.
Penpushing also reports that rather, he said the evidence suggested that her office acted on documents it believed to be genuine and that the failure was one of due diligence and verification, adding that the committee had established that the appointment letter was fake and that the purported establishment Act was forged.
“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’, Gagdi said.
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