PFIPC Controversy: Who Issued The Budget Code? — Babachir Lawal

Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), has responded to a document connecting the SGF’s office with the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).

Documents have emerged, it was reported, showing that the Office of the SGF approved the self-styled Director-General of the PFIPC, Adeniyi Adeyemi, to attend the Canada-Africa Fintech Summit in August 2025.

Lawal, speaking on the development on Arise News, said that such correspondence should not have been processed if the agency had no legal approval.

“If there was no agency, the office of the SGF would have known before forwarding any request,” he said.

“If it is not a legally approved agency, then it should not have arisen in the first place. It shouldn’t be there. And the SGF would know that if it does not exist on any basis why is he forwarding a request? He insisted that if it does not exist “such will not happen in our time.

While the President’s spokesperson may make official announcements on behalf of the administration, Lawal argued that any correspondence from a federal agency passing through the Office of the SGF should first be subjected to due diligence to confirm the agency’s legal status before being forwarded.

“I’m sure the president would assume that such an entity has gone through all the checks and balances before it is established and therefore not every communication from that agency needs to be verified. “But as it comes through the office of the SGF, it must be first subjected to due diligence before it is forwarded,” he said.

Lawal also stated that the SGF had been sidelined in several government processes, calling the situation a “institutional compromise” and not just an administrative failure.

How could a non-existent agency, he asked, have obtained a budget code and made its way through multiple layers of the budgeting process without being picked up by the relevant institutions?

“It’s institutional compromise because I sense there’s quite a big racket going on somewhere along the line. If the agency is created by maybe one big man alone, and then he wants to go through the budget process, the budget office assigns the budget code according to the chart of accounts in GIFMIS. So how did they manage to allocate the budget code for this agency that does not exist? Who put it there?

“Because first of all, the budget office will issue a budget call circular to the MDAs and everybody will start preparing his budget according to the budget line. They give you ceilings and you prepare your budget and send it to the budget office as an agency or ministry. Now, the Ministry of Budget and Planning would call on each MDA in our time to come and defend its budget. Now, if you don’t exist, how did they recognize that you are a real entity? “Who issued the budget code and let their budget go through?,” he asked.

He said, “Nigerians are talking about how 1.3 billion Naira was inserted into the budget. The man himself first said the quarrel started because he refused to give away 48% of the 27 point something billion Naira take-off grant. That money has been spent before this budget office was looking for the budget. Who’d given him the money? It was not appropriated for. It is not in any budget. That 27.5 billion Naira for which he says somebody demanded 48%. Who was the money from? How did the generation of the request for release arise? How did it pass?

“We are only talking about the tip of the iceberg here. He said that 27.5 billion Naira had been given out there before we came as a take-off grant. Where did that money come from? It wasn’t in the budget. This is what should scare us. We only now begin to see it when we are quarreling about how did it get into the budget. If such money can go to a fictitious organization, Where did that money come from?