The letter is dated 21 August 2025. In it, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, told Imeh Patience Okon that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had approved her appointment as Administrator and Chief Executive Officer of the Public Service Institute of Nigeria, PSIN, for an initial term of five years. The letter, reference SGF.12/S.II/C.I/T/12, says the appointment took effect from 13 August 2025, eight days before the letter itself was written and signed.
On 13 August 2025, the day the appointment took effect, the Public Service Institute of Nigeria already had an Administrator. He was Dr. AbdulGaniyu Obatoyinbo, a seasoned administrator whose tenure had been renewed in 2022 for five years, a tenure that ran to 2027. A petition now before the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, dated 18 September 2026 and written by the Society for Justice, Development and Good Governance, states that on 19 August 2025, two days before Senator Akume signed the letter that brought in Imeh Okon, the office of the Head of Service approved Dr. Obatoyinbo, under reference HCSF/CMO/LD/250154/T2, to proceed on an official study tour to the United Kingdom. For that period, the Institute had two Administrators and Chief Executive Officers at the same time.
Imeh Okon assumed office on 1 September 2025. Dr. Obatoyinbo was in London on the official assignment his own office had approved for him. Five days after her takeover, on 6 September 2025, Dr. Obatoyinbo died. The petition states that he died probably following a trigger of unceremonious removal from office, that he was never accused of any wrongdoing, and that no wrongdoing was ever communicated to him before another administrator was appointed over him.
The petition states that the appointment was never announced by the Presidency, that every appointment made by the President is traditionally made public by the Presidency media team, but that this one was not in the press. The Institute itself announced her resumption on 1 September 2025, stating that President Tinubu had approved the appointment. The petition raises the suspicion that the appointment is fake and that Mr. President may not even have been aware that the Public Service Institute of Nigeria had a new administrator at all. The petition asks the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to investigate the circumstances of the appointment, to bring whoever falsified anything to book, and, if the appointment is found fake, to make Imeh Okon refund every salary and allowance she has collected on it.
The petition names Mrs. Didi Walson-Jack, who held the office of Head of the Civil Service of the Federation through the appointment, as the godmother of the appointment. It states that the appointment was kept out of the press for a reason best known to her, and that with her approval, about 90 percent of the old senior staff of the Institute have been posted out, a move the petition calls an erasure of the institutional memory of the Institute. It states that agencies such as INEC and TETFund have since cancelled their retainership of the Institute for the conduct of training and promotion examinations.
Against the line of administrators before her, the petition sets her record plainly. It states that past administrators of the Institute were seasoned administrators, holders of doctorate degrees, with deep experience in research and training administration, appointed on the recommendation of the Head of Service. It states that Imeh Okon does not meet any of these criteria, that she is not a bureaucrat, and that she has no knowledge of institutional administration and the Public Service Rules.
Inside the Institute, the petition paints a daily picture. It states that she does not report for duty until after 2pm every day, that she has been absent from duty for more than 15 days without formal communication, that files are left unattended in her office for over two weeks and backdated when she eventually minutes them to wrong officers, and that non-civil servants are used to access sensitive government documents.
The petition states that she used executive fiat to suspend the staff housing project under construction through a tripartite memorandum of understanding between the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Federal Integrated Staff Housing Scheme and the Institute, against the housing policy of President Tinubu. It states that she closed the back gate through which pupils of the LEA Primary School inside the Institute complex, children between the ages of 4 and 11, have passed since 2009, along with worshippers going to mosque and church programmes, that meetings brokered to reopen the gate failed, that her promise of a bus for the pupils was never fulfilled, and that the children are now left to trek on the Murtala Muhammed Highway to reach their school. The Federal Ministry of Information reported in April 2026 that the Administrator met the parents and teachers of the school, that the back gate was shut to strengthen security, and that a dedicated shuttle bus was approved for the pupils, running from 7 to 8 in the morning and 2 to 3 in the afternoon. The petition states that the promise of a bus for the pupils was never fulfilled.
The petition, signed by Udeh Danessi, Head of Administration of the Society for Justice, Development and Good Governance, asks that Imeh Okon be placed on suspension pending a forensic investigation, and that the matter be referred to the ICPC, the EFCC and the Attorney General. It is addressed to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the office that supervises the Institute, which Mrs. Walson-Jack held until her retirement on 27 August 2026, three weeks before the petition was written. The appointment letter under which Imeh Okon sits gives her five years from 13 August 2025, a tenure that runs to August 2030. The man she replaced held a renewed tenure that ran to 2027.
