‘I was in detention when PFIPC was inserted into national budget’ – Embattled ‘DG’ Adeyemi drops bombshell
See the video
In a dramatic twist to the ongoing controversy rocking the Presidency, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, the embattled head of the disowned Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), has raised fresh questions over the integrity of Nigeria’s financial systems, revealing that the agency was captured in the national budget while he was locked up in a police cell.
Adeyemi dropped the bombshell during a live interview with social media personality and activist VeryDarkMan (VDM).
His revelation comes barely hours after President Bola Tinubu handed down a strict 30-day ultimatum to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to thoroughly investigate the scandal.
The budget contradiction
The Presidency has firmly maintained that the PFIPC is an entirely fictitious entity, labeling Adeyemi an impostor who forged presidential appointment letters, seals, and reference numbers.
However, addressing the shocking inclusion of the “fake” agency in the national budget—which critics report carries a multi-billion naira allocation—Adeyemi argued that a lone actor could not have single-handedly manipulated federal financial frameworks from behind bars.
“I was in detention for 23 days during the period the budget was being prepared,” Adeyemi revealed. “I did not prepare or defend any budget, and nobody went to defend it on my behalf. That is why I am confused about how the agency found its way into the national budget.”
He noted that he was arrested on October 27 and held in custody until November 19—the precise window when federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) were aggregating and defending their allocations before the Budget Office and the National Assembly.
Ready to expose ‘internal collaborators’
Pushing back against allegations of being an isolated “con artist,” Adeyemi announced his total readiness to submit his extensive paper trail to the Department of State Services (DSS), the ICPC, and the police to uncover the institutional network that validated his operations.
“I am willing and ready to help security agencies or any panel set up by Mr. President to unravel the truth,” he stated. “They should authenticate [the documents]. They should verify them. They should unravel the truth.”
Investigations into the saga reveal that before the cracks appeared, the PFIPC operated out of an official space at the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, engaged with the international diplomatic community, and successfully established domiciliary accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
A system under scrutiny
While the Presidency recently admitted that “internal collaborators within government institutions” likely aided the operation, opposition figures and civil society organizations are demanding a deeper inquiry.
Critics argue that the scandal exposes dangerous systemic vulnerabilities, questioning how a supposedly non-existent agency could bypass the multi-layered scrutiny of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Assembly oversight committees.
As public interest intensifies, activist VeryDarkMan has issued an urgent appeal to security forces to ensure Adeyemi’s safety ahead of his appearance in court, emphasizing that the suspect remains a critical link to unmasking deeper corruption within the state apparatus.
Adeyemi made a U-turn on earlier suggestion that his ‘friend’ Dolapo Tanimola was eliminated. He cautioned VDM not to use the the word ‘kill’ because there was no investigation to suggest that the man was killed.
He also said he had never met the Chief of Staff to the president, Femi Gbajabiamila, but had spoken with him like three times.
When VDM asked if it was a video call so he could be sure it was Gbajabiamila he was speaking with, he said it was audio.
Responding to another question, Adeyemi said the conversation was not carried out on his own personal phone but on that of the late Tanimola.
When VDM asked him for his game plan for investing paying N400m naira to Gbajabiamila to secure his appointment, he said he had none.
Pressed further on why he invested such a huge amount of money when he had no plan, he said it was out of his love to serve Nigeria.
Adeyemi, currently facing an eight-count charge bordering on fraud and forgery, is expected back in court later this month.
See the video on our Telegram Channel.
Read Also: From fake UN job to fake govt agency: The decade-long backstory of Prince Adeniyi
