THE NIGERIAN SOUP OPEEA:

I HAVE SEEN SOMETHING

The news enjoying the taste of the lips of gossips and the data of social media sensation is none other than the news of the agency under the presidency’s office that is being argued as to whether it exists or not.

The invisible line that used to divide social media commentators into proponent and opponents have also seemed to vanish on this issue because I am yet to see anyone making excuses on behalf of the federal government why this error, fraud, scam, or blunder (for lack of the proper qualification) should happen in the first place.

Here I was thinking there are linens that should never be brought outside even after they have been washed, and in my opinion, this is one of them and this has left me wondering. 

I AM SAYING SOMETHING

See, I know that we, Nigerians, have a reputation for things that will blow your mind, wild things like snakes swallowing money, monkeys stealing money, termites eating evidence, orders to shoot on peaceful protesters that no one knows where the order emanated from. I understand those scenarios but this one is a new height. A fake agency with forged documents. That, even, sounds like one of the usuals, but what my finger is not wide enough to wrap around is the fact that it made it to the federal budget. 

If the federal government calling this out is not an admittance to colossal ineptitude and total lack of sense of direction, I don’t know what else to call this. I thought I have seen a bit of how budgets are put together but obviously I have no clue and that opens the doors to many other questions;

 How did one man forge a whole agency under the office of the president and housed it in the federal secretariat without detection?

 If the federal government filed a case against Prince Adeniyi in late 2025, how come the agency still featured in the 2026 budget?

 Reports indicate the agency was granted approval to recruit about 300 staff. If that is accurate, who granted the approval and how far did the recruitment process go?

 If indeed this office is a fake and it has enjoyed all that it has, how many of its kind are there in the dark?

  With allegations of kickbacks sticking their heads out of this rabbit hole, is the Prince being dragged because of an alleged breach of an alleged kickback arrangement?

TO THOSE IN PLACES OF AUTHORITY

To the legislative committee on budget appropriation, the fact that Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council secured an allocation of a whooping billion plus naira sounds like an affirmation of the allegation that everything is just rubber stamped. This is a call to sanitise how your function is carried out.

To the executive, if everything is done with the transparency the constitution prescribes, these kinds of shameful situations will only exist in a political nightmare. This is a call to always shake off the sleep in your eyes and read everything before flaunting a signature of approval (that is assuming the approval was granted in error).

To the Chief of Staff, Gbajabiamila, I pray that the allegations of kickback collection remains what the executive has insisted it is. It is our belief that your office is there to help the President make more informed decisions not for self-enrichment.

To ask “how did we get here?” will be the kind of rhetorical tool that even literature avoids using these days. The focus should be how do we go from here? And certainly this drama is not the right route to go.

I sure say I don talk plenty, make I go find small gari