The unfolding controversy surrounding a bogus presidential agency took a sharp turn as the presidency vowed to hunt down and prosecute government insiders who allegedly enabled an elaborate fraud ring to operate from within the heart of the federal bureaucracy.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, stated that internal collaborators within government institutions were directly responsible for facilitating the illegal operations of the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).
The statement comes amidst intensifying public scrutiny over how the self-styled Director-General of the non-existent agency, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, successfully operated out of the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja for months before his arrest.
Presidency vows to dismantle insider network
Reacting to the escalating scandal, Ajayi commended officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for ultimately detecting the institutional anomalies and sounding the alarm.
However, he maintained that the scheme could not have advanced so far without a hidden network of public officials providing bureaucratic cover.
“What is not in doubt is that internal collaborators enabled Adeniyi to get this far. The criminal network within the affected institutions must be dismantled,” said Ajayi.
Ajayi confirmed that Nigeria’s top security and anti-graft agencies—including the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Police Force, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)—have been mandated to expose and prosecute every insider involved.
Accusations of public manipulation and targeted distractions
The presidential aide fiercely defended the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, whom Adeyemi has attempted to implicate.
Adeyemi recently went on the offensive, claiming that the institutional standoff began because he rejected a demand from the Chief of Staff for a percentage of a multi-billion naira take-off grant.
Dismissing these claims, Ajayi labelled Adeyemi an “irredeemable con artist” who is weaponising Nigeria’s public sensitivity toward corruption to shield himself from criminal accountability.
“In Nigeria, the easiest and most believable allegation anyone can throw at a public officer is corruption,” Ajayi argued, stating that Adeyemi is deliberately clouding the waters to divert attention from his multi-layered criminal trial. He described the attacks on Gbajabiamila as the suspect’s “last straw.”
Systemic vulnerabilities vs. institutional checks
While critics and civil society organisations have cited the scandal as a glaring symptom of systemic failure, Ajayi argued that the resolution of the case proves the opposite.
He noted that while daredevil criminals attempt high-stakes heists globally, the Nigerian system effectively triggered its own immune response.
According to investigative briefs, the scam began to unravel when the NIPC noticed that a parallel entity was operating at cross-purposes with its statutory investment mandate.
Simultaneously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs flagged a major diplomatic breach after Adeyemi hosted foreign ambassadors at an Abuja hotel without ministry clearance or coordination.
A highly sophisticated web of misrepresentation
Despite the presidency’s insistence that the PFIPC is a total phantom, the case has sparked intense debate over budget integrity.
Public records from the 2026 Appropriation Act reportedly show an allocation of approximately ₦1.3 billion listed under the joint name of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and the PFIPC, fueling demands from opposition leaders for an independent judicial inquiry.
Police investigations have exposed the staggering scale of the operation. Authorities allege that Adeyemi:
Forged presidential appointment letters, official State House letterheads, and executive seals.
Maintained 34 separate bank accounts, nine of which were opened under fictitious government agency names.
Misled the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to open an official account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), though investigators confirm no public funds were successfully wired into it.
Adeyemi and two accomplices currently face an eight-count criminal charge bordering on conspiracy, forgery, and impersonation at the Federal High Court in Abuja, with the next high-profile hearing slated for July 27, 2026.
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