The man at the centre of the high-profile scandal rocking the Nigerian bureaucracy, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, is not new to the Nigerian media or controversy.
In 2016, he turned up with a sizzling press release wherein he announced his own election into the leadership structure of a fictitious United Nations-affiliated body, called the World Youth Organisation (WYO).
The Patriotic hook
Adeyemi stoked the patriotic zeal of the local press with the first line of his press release, announcing how a Nigerian named Mr Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew beat others from across the world to be elected in New Delhi, India, to the office of “President-General of the World Youth Organisation (WYO)’.
To cement this fiction, by January 2017, Adeniyi published photos claiming to depict his official “swearing-in ceremony” at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the picture, he was all smiles, standing in front of three flags, including those of the UN and Nigeria. He raised an open palm in a gesture of someone being sworn in. No picture of any of the so-called officials swearing him in was provided.
The set-up looked nothing like Switzerland, but the euphoria of the huge national win, apparently, prevented the press from noticing at the time.
Despite the visual red flags, the narrative successfully tricked prominent national daily newspapers such as the Nigerian Tribune, Vanguard and The Punch, among others.
There are some references to Adeyemi being a “former aide to former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon” and a “former Accounting Officer to the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade.”
Adeniyi built a professional profile on LinkedIn, formally executing his persona as an internationally recognised diplomat. He called himself Adeniyi Mathew there.
He built a website proclaiming the UN affiliation and also aggressively marketed himself and his organisation on social media, particularly Facebook. Both have been pulled down now.
The Reality — The cards collapsed
An investigation initially launched by a group called Under Watch Nigeria in 2017 shattered Adeniyi’s diplomatic facade.
The real World Youth Organisation was not a UN-affiliated political body, nor did it hold elections in New Delhi to appoint Nigerian executives.
It was a registered independent charity founded in England and Wales in 2015. Crucially, it was started by a 17-year-old British teenager named Kieran Goodwin.
When Under Watch Nigeria tracked the infrastructure of Adeniyi’s digital footprint, the digital trail led straight back to a local web developer—Webline—operating out of #2 Ogunyase Street, near the University of Ibadan.
Adeniyi had mentioned in his release that Kieran Goodwin himself was personally piloting the affairs of the Nigerian arm before he (Adeniyi) was elected to take over the entire apparatus for a four-year tenure.
Upon being contacted by fact-finders, the UK-based World Youth Organisation issued an official fraud warning in February 2017, explicitly denouncing any link to Adeniyi Matthew and exposing his operations as an unauthorised scam.
The monetisation strategy
UnderWatch’s investigation revealed that Adeniyi launched a digital campaign for an initiative dubbed the “World Economic Youth Summit 2017.”
Operating through a dedicated Facebook page, he targeted young, ambitious Nigerians seeking international networking opportunities. All they had to do was go through a registration portal demanding $600 per participant.
They were promised international visas, UN-backed certificates, and global prestige. It is not clear if anyone paid him any money before the platform was flagged.
Fake govt agency saga
Central to the dispute is the existence of the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC)—alternatively styled as the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).
While the Presidency and security agencies flatly maintain that the body is entirely fictitious and built on forged documentation, the accused asserts otherwise, presenting a defence that has introduced dramatic, unverified counter-claims involving high-ranking state officials.
The whistleblower and the accusation
According to official state records, the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, was the original whistleblower in this matter.
Security reports indicate that on October 17, 2025, the Chief of Staff petitioned the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigeria Police Force to probe an alleged network of impostors operating from the Federal Secretariat Complex, Abuja.
The petition followed alarms raised by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) regarding a parallel entity operating at cross-purposes with it.
Subsequent police investigations led to the arrest of Adeyemi on October 27, 2025. Investigators claim the suspect operated 34 bank accounts—nine under fictitious agency names—and allegedly misled the Office of the Accountant-General to open an unauthorised Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) account.
However, in a recent series of media briefings while on bail, Adeyemi fiercely contested these findings.
He argued that the PFIPC cannot be labelled “non-existent” if references to the agency purportedly exist within official state documentation, such as pages 50 and 51 of the 2026 Appropriation Act.
Furthermore, Adeyemi levelled severe allegations against the Chief of Staff, claiming the dispute stems from a multi-billion-naira take-off grant, out of which he alleges Gbajabiamila requested a 48% cut and received ₦400 million via a proxy.
The Presidency has vehemently dismissed these claims as a desperate smear campaign.
Senior presidential aides counter that accusing a public officer of corruption is a classic tactic used by con artists to muddy the waters, blur investigative lines, and distract the public from clear criminal indictments.
The deceased intermediary — A convenient silence?
A critical element of Adeniyi’s defence rests on the shoulders of an intermediary named Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola.
According to statements provided during the investigation, Adeniyi asserted that Tanimola was the vital “go-between” who facilitated his communications and appointments with the Chief of Staff.
However, the truth of this connection may prove exceptionally difficult to establish. Police records show that Tanimola tragically died in a fire incident at the Kachi Hotel in Abuja just five days before Adeyemi’s arrest in October 2025.
The Investigative Dilemma: The sudden demise of Tanimola introduces a profound layer of scepticism. Observers question whether Adeyemi is capitalising on the tragic death of an individual known to have had high-level access, weaving him into the narrative, knowing that a deceased man cannot be called to the witness box to confirm or deny the interactions.
The offshore account claim — Verification or Diversion?
In an attempt to back his bribery allegations, Adeyemi claimed to have paid money into an offshore account belonging to the Chief of Staff. He further averred that the physical transaction slips proving this inflow were seized by the Nigeria Police Force during a raid on his Suleja residence and Federal Secretariat office.
This claim presents a direct challenge for state investigators. To move past mere rhetoric, independent legal analysts note that a thorough probe is required:
Relevant anti-graft agencies, such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), would need to officially contact the foreign banking institutions in question.
Investigators would also need to verify whether the Chief of Staff holds the alleged offshore accounts and whether any financial inflows match the timelines and figures cited by the accused.
Without this forensic verification, the allegation hangs in the balance: it remains an unproven assertion that could either be an explosive administrative scandal or a highly calculated fabric of lies designed to compromise the state’s prosecution.
Conclusion: The burden of proof
While the similarities between the 2017 WYO incident and the current PFIPC controversy are striking, the ultimate determination of guilt rests solely with the judiciary. Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew remains innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.
The upcoming July 27 trial will decide whether the accused is a master manipulator who utilised forged state papers and engineered a smear campaign to shield himself, or if his allegations point to a deeply entrenched network of internal government collaborators that demands a transparent, independent probe.
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