President Bola Tinubu on Thursday ordered a sweeping crackdown after investigators discovered an alleged illegal government agency operating right inside the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
Tinubu ordered the immediate arrest of George Nwabueze, the man allegedly behind the illegal outfit, and placed three Permanent Secretaries on compulsory suspension pending investigation.
Theliberationnews gathered that men of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission [ICPC] stumbled on the unauthorised organisation while tracing a wider network of bogus agencies set up to defraud government and unsuspecting citizens.
The group was allegedly running operations from within the OSGF complex itself — the administrative nerve centre of the Federal Government.
“Imagine a fake agency, issuing letters, receiving visitors, and operating under the roof of the SGF’s office,” a senior government source said. “That is how deep the rot had gone.”
Tinubu has now directed security agencies to pick up Nwabueze for interrogation to determine who authorised the office space, who funded the operation, and how long it had been running.
—Three Top Bureaucrats Shown The Door—
In a swift move, the President also suspended three Permanent Secretaries linked to the findings.
The Presidency said the suspensions take immediate effect and the affected officials will face full investigation to determine if they aided, looked away, or directly benefited from the scam.
Their names were not released Thursday night. But the message was clear: No one is untouchable.
In a statement, the OSGF vowed the government would “identify and eliminate fraudulent entities, irregularities and administrative weaknesses” across all MDAs.
The Tinubu administration has framed the arrests and suspensions as the start of a broader purge to sanitise the civil service and block leakages tied to ghost agencies, illegal recruitments, and procurement fraud.
The ICPC confirmed its investigation is ongoing, with more arrests and disclosures expected in the coming days.
For now, the arrest of Nwabueze and the suspension of three of the most senior civil servants in the country sends one signal from Aso Rock: The era of business as usual is over.
