Reuben Abati is right that Nigeria’s alleged fake-agency scandal exposes a frightening failure of government controls. But there are two problems with his argument that deserve closer attention: the history he relies upon reaches back into a government in which he himself served, and his account of how Permanent Secretaries can be suspended is more complicated than the rules suggest.
Reuben Abati’s column on Nigeria’s latest alleged fake-agency scandal contains a warning that should not be dismissed simply because parts of his argument are contestable. A government that cannot confidently tell the public who is authorised to speak, appoint, spend and operate in its name has a serious problem.
On that much, Abati is right.
If people can obtain office space inside the federal bureaucracy, correspond with state governments, acquire official-looking documentation, appoint coordinators around the country and appear before public officials while the centre struggles to establish where their authority came from, the embarrassment belongs first to government. It is not enough to catch the person at the gate if someone inside the compound gave him the key.
But one date in Abati’s own column deserves much more attention than he gives it: July 2010.
George Buchi Nwabueze says the Made-in-Nigeria programme has been in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation since July 2010. Abati repeats that claim in challenging ICPC: how, he asks in effect, could a programme sit inside the OSGF for 16 years and suddenly be discovered as unauthorised in 2026?
There is an awkward history buried inside that question.
July 2010 was during the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. Abati was not yet Jonathan’s spokesman when the particular letter now being circulated was written. He joined the Presidency as Special Adviser on Media and Publicity in July 2011 and thereafter served at the centre of that government until 2015. Nobody should twist that fact into an allegation that Abati created the project, approved it or even knew about it. There is no evidence for any of those claims. But if Nwabueze wants Nigerians to accept a 16-year history as evidence of legitimacy, then that history necessarily runs through an administration in which Abati himself subsequently served for almost four years.
That makes the 2010 document even more important.
What does it actually say?
The letter Nwabueze has published was addressed to “Buchi George”, then Executive Director of The Hats Centre in Owerri. It acknowledged his proposal for a “Made in Naija” project to be held in Ireland as part of Nigeria’s 50th anniversary and advised him to forward the proposal to the Nigerian High Commission in Ireland for possible consideration.
That is evidence of contact with government. It is not obviously evidence that government created an agency.
If this is being presented as the birth certificate of the present office, then the obvious question is where the rest of the birth record is.
At what point did a proposal from the Executive Director of The Hats Centre become an office of the Federal Government? Who approved that transition? Under what authority? Where is the instrument creating the office? When was its structure approved? Who authorised its national and state coordinators? Who determined that its head could carry the titles subsequently used?
The history of a proposal is not necessarily the history of an agency. A relationship with government is not the same thing as being government.
That distinction runs through almost every document now being offered in Nwabueze’s defence.
He points to the Federal Government’s Made-in-Nigeria policy. That policy existed. He points to Executive Orders 003 and 005. They exist. They provide strong policy backing for local procurement, Nigerian participation and the promotion of indigenous goods and services.
But a policy objective does not automatically create every office established in its name.
Then there is the October 3, 2025 appointment letter. That document deserves serious treatment. On its face, it purports to appoint Nwabueze National Coordinator and Executive Director of the Made-in-Nigeria Project Office for five years, refers to regional and state structures and provides temporary accommodation in Room B53 of the OSGF complex. If authentic, it is important evidence that officials within government were involved.
But authenticity is only the first question. Authority is the next.
