By The figure is N144,370,056.61. A petition dated 18 September 2026, written by the Society for Justice, Development and Good Governance to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, states that payment vouchers totalling N144,370,056.61 were misappropriated under Imeh Patience Okon, Administrator and Chief Executive Officer of the Public Service Institute of Nigeria, PSIN, between 1 September 2025, the day she assumed office, and July 2026. The petition states that she used some staff of the Institute as pass-through for the funds, that the funds were later transferred to her aides, notably Ayobami Samson Adedigba and Victor Liman, and to close related contractors, and it attaches annexures 1 to 41 as the record of the movement of the funds, with the details set out in annexure 42.
The same petition carries the renovation of the Institute’s own hotel. It states that Imeh Okon used selective tendering to award a contract of about N350,000,000 to Peculiar Treasure Engineering Limited for the renovation of 105 rooms in the PSIN Veragold Hotel for the use of the Foreign Service Academy. It states that the renovation of hotel rooms was not a specialised technical work, that no prior pre-qualification exercise was carried out to identify suitable bidders, and that the grounds for selective tendering were never discussed nor approved at the Procurement Tender Board, whose members were only invited to approve the name of the favoured contractor. Under the Public Procurement Act 2007, open competitive bidding is the default method for public contracts, and selective tendering is permitted only within defined conditions and approvals.
The petition states that a Certificate of No Objection was allegedly secured for the award without prior approval for the selective tender, that the procurement exercise leading to the award was done within two days, and that she allegedly obtained unfair advantage in procurement through internal collaborators in the Bureau of Public Procurement, evident in the way and manner the certificates of no objection were secured from the Bureau for the award of projects. It states separately that ongoing renovation works awarded to Peculiar Treasure Engineering Company Limited stand at N435 million, for rooms that were renovated in the preceding year, that the rooms were comfortable for hostel accommodation, and that there was no properly documented assessment to justify the expenditure.
While the renovation ran, the Foreign Service Academy, for whose use the 105 rooms were renovated, could not return to them. The petition states that for over 40 days the Academy was not able to resume classes and that there was no assurance the Academy would hold activities this year.
The company the petition names for both the N350 million tender and the N435 million renovation works does not appear on the register of the Corporate Affairs Commission under that name. A search of the Commission’s public register returns no company called Peculiar Treasure Engineering Limited. The nearest name on the register is Peculiar Treasures Engineering Company Limited, a different name, registered in 1998 and shown on the register as inactive. The security firm the petition names, Aperture Security Solution Limited, also does not appear on the register under that name. The register carries an Aperture Security Solutions Ltd, registered in January 2023 and shown as active.
The petition states that she cancelled outright the concluded procurement bid process for the 2025 capital projects of the Institute, that she procured a fictitious authority for the cancellation from the Bureau of Public Procurement, that she later agreed to allow the constituency projects to stay in order to avoid the anger of the honourable members, and that she refused to reinitiate the procurement bid process for the 2025 capital projects and did not subscribe to advertising them.
It states that the Syndicate building in the Institute is being funded from overhead, whereas the project has appropriation in the 2025 capital projects of the Institute and was re-appropriated in the 2026 capital projects, and that the building was initiated by her personal contractors without due process instead of the contractor approved by the Bureau of Public Procurement.
It states that she engaged Aperture Security Solution Limited as a private security outfit for the Institute without following the procurement process, and it notes that the Institute already has enough Civil Defence Corps personnel, vigilante corps and Nigeria Legion cover. It states that she engages contractors without input from the management staff meeting, and that she approves payments to vendors in which she has undisclosed interest.
The petition states that Imeh Okon collects N1,350,000 as facilitator in every training programme of the Institute, that she is not a certified trainer, and that she did not facilitate the programmes, describing the collections as self-enrichment. It states that she has refused to approve staff promotion arrears and repatriation allowance for retired staff.
On the money, the petition asks the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation for the immediate recovery of the N144,370,056.61 it says was embezzled directly or through proxies by Imeh Okon, for the freezing of the related accounts, and for her prosecution if she is found guilty of the allegations of procurement of fake letters of appointment and fund embezzlement.
