PFIPC’s Adeyemi must be allowed to give his testimony in public, lawyer tells reps panel
The lawyer of Adeniyi Adeyemi, the director-general of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, has asked the house of representatives’ committee probing the PFIPC scandal to allow Adeyemi to give his testimony in public.
In a statement on Wednesday, Ademola Oyedokun, counsel to Adeyemi, said his client welcomed the decision of the house of representatives to investigate the PFIPC scandal.
Recently, some officials of the federal government appeared before the house of representatives ad hoc committee investigating the PFIPC controversy and the N1.3 billion allocated to the council in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
During the committee’s hearing last Wednesday, Tunji Disu, inspector-general of Police (IGP), declined to produce Adeyemi before the ad hoc committee, citing that the self-styled director-general is being held in custody on a court order.
The committee had previously asked the IGP to produce Adeyemi during the hearing.
Reacting to the development, the lawyer asked the house of representatives to invoke its powers under section 89 of the 1999 constitution and summon Adeyemi to appear before the committee.
The counsel said the bench warrant cited by the police authorities during the committee’s hearing was meant to arrest Adeyemi and not to detain in custody.
Oyedokun said there is no order detaining the PFIPC DG in police custody, adding that Adeyemi has not been brought before any court.
“We have read that the Committee intends to interview our client at an undisclosed date
and place,” the statement reads.
“We ask it, respectfully, to think again. Everyone else in this matter has been heard in public, and what has been said about our client was said in public.
“He should be allowed to answer in the same place it was said.
Section 89 of the Constitution gives the Committee power to summon any person and to compel his attendance. We ask it to use that power and to require the police to produce our client at a public sitting.
“He will attend on any date it names, with his counsel, and answer every question put to him.
“Our client does not ask the Committee to compromise any investigation. He will answer
in public the questions this Committee was constituted to ask, and will reserve, upon legal advice, any question touching a matter before a court or an agency.
“Those may be taken separately and in private. What cannot be right is that the whole of his account be taken behind a closed door because part of it is sensitive.
Adeyemi has been in police custody since he was arrested in Osun state on July 14.
Prior to his arrest, a federal high court in Abuja ordered his arrest after he failed to honour the court’s summons.
Adeyemi was the mastermind of the fictitious PFIPC that operated like a government agency, receiving an allocation in the 2026 budget, occupying an office at the federal secretariat and also recruiting staff, without no legal standing or presidential declaration.