Adeniyi Adeyemi’s ‘Fake’ Presidential Agency: The Questions Nigerians Are Asking

Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, a native of Ogbomosho in Oyo State, has been at the centre of a controversy over the alleged creation of a ‘fictitious’ government agency dubbed the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).

The controversy climaxed on Wednesday when the special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, issued a disclaimer, stating that the PFIPC was never an agency of the Federal Government, describing Adeyemi as an impostor who forged government documents to parade himself as the director-general of the non-existent agency.

Background Adeyemi had earlier alleged that the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, received N400 million through a proxy, with an outstanding balance of N200 million, to secure his appointment.

He also accused Gbajabiamila of demanding 48 per cent of the PFIPC's proposed N27.4 billion take-off grant, a request he claimed to have rejected.

The allegations came after Gbajabiamila, in a June 11 statement, maintained that the PFIPC did not exist under President Bola Tinubu's administration and that Adeyemi had never been appointed to head it.

What We Found The Nigerian Voice found no record of any formal public announcement regarding Adeyemi's appointment. However, he was seen meeting top government officials, diplomats, politicians, traditional rulers and other prominent figures in Nigeria's public life.

According to a letter attributed to Gbajabiamila, Adeyemi operated from an office at the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase III, second floor, where he held several high-level meetings.

Images shared online also show him with the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede. In one of the posts, Adeyemi stated that he visited the EFCC headquarters for collaboration, claiming that the anti-graft agency and the PFIPC had “forged a stronger collaborative pact to improve on foreign direct investment drives into the country.”

The meeting reportedly took place in Abuja on Thursday, September 4, 2025. Adeyemi also met with the Chairperson of the World Bank Inspection Panel, James Pam, over what was described as a “strategic partnership.” Another image showed him exchanging a handshake with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu.

It was also gathered that on September 2, 2025, the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes wrote to the PFIPC director-general, requesting the nomination of senior officials of the agency to participate in the High-Level Study Exchange on Anti-Corruption Policy and Institutional Reform which was then scheduled to hold in London, United Kingdom, between September and December 2025.

Similarly, the House of Representatives Committee on Treaties, Protocols and Agreements, in a letter dated September 3, 2025, invited the now-disowned agency to participate in the Executive Study Exchange on Institutional Excellence in Treaty Governance held in Casablanca, Morocco, between November and December 2025.

Official documents also revealed that the Federal Government approved a waiver in August 2025 allowing the controversial PFIPC to recruit 300 personnel despite an existing embargo on recruitment into the federal civil service.

The approval, contained in a two-page letter dated August 7, 2025, was signed by the Director of Organisation Design and Development in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mimi Abu, and copied to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

The 2026 Appropriation Act, signed by President Bola Tinubu, also made a budgetary provision of N1,302,978,784 for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

The allocation, listed under the Presidency, comprises N802,978,783 for personnel costs, N200,000,001 for overhead and N300,000,000 for capital projects.

It was further gathered that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation received, acknowledged and acted on Adeyemi's November 7, 2024 request for office accommodation.

Denial of Wrongdoing The alleged self-classd PFIPC director-general has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the Chief of Staff to the President facilitated his appointment.

Speaking from hiding in a telephone interview on Channels Television's Politics Today on Thursday, Adeyemi expressed confidence that he would clear his name.

“Definitely, if I am wrong, let the court of law do that; if I am right, let the court of law do the right thing. Do you know what? Since the matter is in the court, let the court of competent jurisdiction vindicate me because I am ready to clear my name. Let the court take its course. Since my lawyers are involved, everybody will follow us, they will monitor the whole thing. Let the court of competent jurisdiction do the needful. I have a letter of appointment. However, since the matter is in the court, I won’t be able to say much about it, I am on medication. I am a bit down, I am sick.”

Asked whether Gbajabiamila had knowledge of his appointment, he replied: "Yes."

Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola: A Late Key Witness?

Onanuga said Adeyemi told the police that his appointment letter was given to him by one Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola.

The Presidency also disclosed that Tanimola died following a fire incident at Kachi Hotel in Abuja on October 22, 2025, five days before Adeyemi's arrest.

"Tanimola's body was seen by the police at the morgue, confirming the death," Onanuga said.

This newspaper found no reported case of fire outbreak at the mentioned hotel.

Adeyemi: A Con Artist With a History? The Presidency described Adeyemi as a con artist with a history of fraudulent conduct.

According to Onanuga, Adeyemi had, in November 2016, paraded himself as an ambassador and President-General of the World Youth Organisation (WYO), which he falsely claimed was affiliated with the United Nations. The claim was said to have subsequently been debunked by the UN.

The Questions Nigerians Are Asking The series of revelations surrounding the PFIPC has left many Nigerians bewildered. Beyond the allegations against Adeyemi, the controversy has shifted public attention to a broader issue: how an organisation the Presidency now describes as fictitious appeared to function within the corridors of government for months.

Akintunde Babatunde, Executive Director of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), said that while the Presidency's statement addressed the allegations against the suspect, it left important institutional questions unanswered.

Among the issues he raised were how a purportedly non-existent agency allegedly operated from the Federal Secretariat, why government institutions continued corresponding over its status even after Adeyemi's arrest, what verification processes failed in relation to its alleged Central Bank account, and why multiple government agencies interacted with the council before questions were raised about its legitimacy.

According to him, regardless of the outcome of the criminal proceedings, Nigerians deserve explanations on how official safeguards failed.

Adding another dimension to the controversy, former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Timi Frank, called for an independent forensic investigation into the death of Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola, whom the Presidency identified as the person from whom Adeyemi allegedly received his appointment letter.

Frank argued that Tanimola's death, which the Presidency said occurred in a hotel fire in Abuja days before Adeyemi's arrest, should be independently investigated because of his alleged role in the controversy. He also urged key government institutions, including the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Budget Office, the Central Bank of Nigeria and security agencies, to explain how the PFIPC allegedly obtained official recognition in several government processes.

A political communication scholar, Farooq Kperogi, also argued that the controversy should not be viewed solely through the prism of alleged forgery.

He contended that even if Adeyemi is ultimately convicted or exonerated by the courts, the episode has exposed weaknesses in institutional oversight, raising questions about how an allegedly fictitious agency gained access to government offices, official correspondence, public funds appropriated by the National Assembly, diplomatic engagements and interactions with senior public officials.

What Happens Next? Adeyemi is expected to appear before the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 27, 2026, after the Nigeria Police Force filed an eight-count charge against him and two others identified simply as Femi and Anu over alleged forgery and impersonation.

The charge sheet was filed on November 27, 2025, by the prosecuting counsel in the Directorate of Legal Services at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, Wisdom Madaki.

In the charge sheet, the police accused Adeyemi and the two other suspects of forging presidential letterhead papers.

The police further alleged that Adeyemi, Femi and Anu “forged request for collaboration with the Ministry of the Area of Land requisition and offices across the 36 states of the Federation purported to have been issued from State House Abuja Nigeria.”