The Nigerian Senate has declined to launch its own investigation into the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) on Wednesday.
It shut down a motion for a comprehensive probe on the grounds that President Bola Tinubu has already directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to handle the matter.
The move was initiated by Senator Suleiman Kawu of Kano South, who raised a point of order during plenary citing Order 9 and Rule 9(c) of the Senate Standing Orders 2026.
His motion called on the Senate to investigate the budgetary allocation, operations and growing controversy surrounding the PFIPC and to safeguard the integrity of both the Senate and the Federal Government.
Kawu argued that the swirling allegations directly threatened the credibility of the National Assembly and its constitutional powers over oversight and appropriation.
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He urged the Senate to condemn what he described as administrative lapses or fraudulent schemes that allowed a purportedly non-existent or unauthorised entity to be inserted into the 2026 Appropriation Act under Budget Code 0111062001.
The senator asked the Committees on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions, and Appropriations to investigate how the sum of N1,302,978,784 was proposed, scrutinised, justified and approved during the appropriation process, which officials facilitated the PFIPC's inclusion in the national budget, and whether any funds had been released, spent or held in a bank account linked to the budget line.
The motion did not, however, get off the ground as Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, who presided over the plenary, ruled against allowing debate on the matter, stating that the executive was already handling it.
Jibrin told senators that Tinubu had already referred the matter to the ICPC for investigation and urged the legislature to await the outcome before taking further steps.
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