A Council That Didn’t Exist Got N1.3 Billion in Nigeria’s Budget
Nigeria's anti-corruption commission found the Budget Office admitted a body with no establishment instrument into the 2026 appropriation. The post A Council That Didn’t Exist Got N1.3 Billion in Nigeria’s Budget appeared first on The Rio Times .
The Nigerian Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) discovered that the Budget Office of the Federation included a council with no verified legal existence in the 2026 national budget, allotting N1.3 billion to it. The council, known as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, lacked a verified establishment instrument.
The ICPC did not find that the money had been actually released or disbursed. Officials used a scanned approval document that had not been officially transmitted to them, and the budget manager involved admitted to never having seen the department's own procedures. The council's proposal submitted on August 20, 2025, claimed personnel costs of N3.85 billion, but the Budget Office rejected this figure and recalculated using the standard public service scale, resulting in an estimated N1.3 billion total.
No evidence was found that the deficiencies were escalated to the Director of Expenditure, and the budget manager handling the file stated he was unaware of the required procedure. The council's director-general, Adeniyi Adeyemi, was separately charged with forgery and impersonation. The ICPC's report emphasized the need for establishment documents to be a prerequisite for budget entry.
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