Esther Didi Walson-Jack, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, has admitted that her office failed to conduct proper due diligence before approving recruitment waivers for a non-existent government entity. The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee is investigating how the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council operated without legal standing.
During the committee hearing, Walson-Jack conceded that her office processed requests based on fraudulent documentation. Officials from the purported agency had presented a counterfeit Establishment Act and a fake appointment letter for their Director-General during the 2025 budget defense exercises. She acknowledged that the lack of standard authentication for these records was an unprecedented lapse in the history of the federal service.
Committee members highlighted that forensic analysis confirmed the signatures on the documents were not merely forged but were entirely different from official government correspondence. Furthermore, the supposed Establishment Act lacked essential legal markers, such as Gazette numbers or Supreme Court citations. Despite these glaring errors, the HCSF maintained that the approval followed established administrative protocols, though she pledged to implement reforms to enhance security against such fraud.
The investigation also scrutinized the Office of the Accountant-General, where officials mistakenly handed over an administrative code to the alleged fraudster instead of delivering it to the Permanent Secretary of the State House. Committee leadership argued this breach allowed the suspects to intercept sensitive government information. The police confirmed that the main suspect, Prince Adeyemi, remains in custody, requiring a court order for his appearance before the legislature.
