‘The fake DG used cloned presidency letterhead to fool me’ — Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, has openly confessed to being one of the high-profile casualties of the elaborate multi-million naira fraud allegedly orchestrated by the self-acclaimed Director-General of the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), Prince Mathew Adebayo Adeniyi.
Speaking during a heated legislative plenary, Kalu gave a detailed account of how the sophisticated syndicate successfully bypassed standard parliamentary security checks to gain an audience with the House leadership using forged executive instruments.
According to the Abia State-born legislator, his office received an official correspondence dated May 2, 2025, which featured a flawless clone of the Nigerian Presidency insignia.
The letterhead boldly announced the sender as the Director-General, overseer of both the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) and the PFIPC.
An elaborate facade at the Federal Secretariat
Kalu admitted that while the dual-council title initially raised internal eyebrows, the technical details provided by the group made their operations appear completely legitimate.
“When I saw this, I looked down at the letterhead. I saw the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase 3, 2nd Floor, Central Business District. I also saw the website, pfipc.gov.ng. Some of the information looked credible, some did not,” Kalu explained to lawmakers.
To protect his office, the Deputy Speaker deployed an intelligence team to physically verify the address. Shockingly, the verification team returned with confirmation that the council had a fully operational physical setup within the government-owned Federal Secretariat complex. Relying on this verification, Kalu formally approved a closed-door meeting with the group.
The syndicate had originally requested the high-level meeting under the guise of discussing critical national policies, including the 10th House of Representatives Constitution Amendment process, foreign investor confidence, and legislative governance.
However, once inside the inner chambers of the National Assembly, the true nature of the visit became apparent.
“When they came and started engaging, the issues they mentioned in the letter were not what they engaged on,” Kalu revealed. “They did not talk about the Constitution that we were amending. They were more about photo taking.”
The ₦1.3bn budget insertion mystery
The ongoing scandal has thrown both the executive and legislative branches into intense damage-control mode. The controversy reached a boiling point after it was discovered that the completely non-existent council had somehow been inserted into the 2026 Appropriation Act as a beneficiary of federal funds.
The revelation that a phantom agency successfully secured budget allocations forced the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, to petition security agencies regarding the massive breach of institutional integrity. Following the outcry, President Bola Tinubu disowned the body entirely and ordered the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to fish out and prosecute the internal insiders who facilitated the budget fraud.
Reflecting on the security breach, Kalu warned his colleagues that modern criminal syndicates have completely evolved, proving that beautiful letterheads and official government addresses are no longer guarantees of authenticity.
“It is our duty, based on Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution, to dig deeper into this matter,” Kalu concluded, urging the green chamber to launch a comprehensive probe to restore transparency and accountability to the federal budget process.
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