Office of Accountant General Lied, CBN Says It Opened Accounts for Fake Agency

The Central Bank of Nigeria has accused the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation of lies over claims that no accounts were opened for the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council purportedly headed embattled Director General, Adeyemi Adeniyi Mathew.

A Director of the apex bank, in charge of Banking Services, Abdullahi Hamisu while representing the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso at the House of Representatives investigative session on Tuesday, said though the two domiciliary accounts opened in the name of the now fake council, were never funded.

Abdullahi however revealed that the apex bank received an official directive dated July 29, 2025, from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

The OAGF, he claimed, requested the opening of two domiciliary accounts for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council.

According to him, following standard verification procedures to authenticate the mandate, the CBN opened both a United States Dollar account and a Pound Sterling account on July 30, 2025.

“On the 30th of July, 2025, we received the mandate, but the mandate has a date on it that is July 29, 2025, and I have submitted our response. A copy of the mandate is also attached to our response.

“So we received the mandate authorising us to open two accounts. One is a US dollar domiciliary account. The other one is a GBP domiciliary account for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

“Based on that mandate, we did the normal verification to confirm the genuineness of the mandate and also processed the account opening, and two accounts were actually opened (domiciliary): a dollar account and a pound sterling account for the Presidential Economic Advisory council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council wall summit.

“Usually, when we open the account, we also advise OAGF through a letter that this account has actually been opened so that he can inform the agency directly.

‘So after opening this account, we did not receive any correspondence to collect signature mandate cards, or we were not introduced to who the authorising officers or the approving officers were.

‘We were not introduced to that. Based on that, those accounts remain inactive with zero balance and have never been operated. Those two accounts have never been operated.” He said

Abdullahi further clarified that no financial activity has ever taken place on the accounts, stressing that there have been no deposits, withdrawals, foreign exchange allocations, remittances, inflows or outflows since they were created.

“Like I said, the accounts have never been operated.

‘As a result, there have not been any foreign exchange allocations to the council from CBN. There have not been any remittances into those two accounts.

‘There have not been approvals because the authority has not been established for those who will operate the account,” Hamisu said on Monday. 

“So, there was no transaction made to or by the council throughout the period: from August when it was opened till today when we generated the statement. The details of financial inflow – I think I’ve mentioned this. That’s the number three question.

‘The account has maintained a zero balance from inception to date. The accounts have maintained a zero balance from inception to date and have never recorded any inflow or outflow.” He said.