Nigeria’s Presidency is facing mounting scrutiny over its handling of a sprawling fraud case involving a man accused of operating a fictitious government agency and forging official presidential documents, with fresh questions emerging over how an allegedly non-existent body secured a budget allocation and access to the country’s financial system.
The controversy centres on Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, who is standing trial before the Federal High Court in Abuja on eight counts of conspiracy, forgery and impersonation. Prosecutors allege that Adeyemi posed as the director-general of the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), a body the government insists never existed.
In a detailed statement issued on Wednesday, the Presidency sought to distance itself from Adeyemi and defend the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, against allegations of complicity. The statement, signed by presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga, outlined the police investigation and warned politicians against using the affair to attack the presidential aide.
According to the Presidency, Adeyemi was arrested in October 2025 after Gbajabiamila petitioned security agencies over what he described as an elaborate scheme involving forged appointment letters and the impersonation of government officials.
Police investigators allege that Adeyemi forged documents bearing the purported signature of the Chief of Staff, hosted meetings with diplomats and government officials under the guise of heading a presidential agency, and maintained 34 bank accounts, nine of them in the names of non-existent government entities.
The charges filed against him include conspiracy to commit forgery, impersonation, and the falsification of official State House correspondence.
The Presidency said the case first came to light after officials at the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission raised concerns that another organisation appeared to be operating in parallel with their agency. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs subsequently became alarmed when Adeyemi reportedly hosted ambassadors at a luxury Abuja hotel without official authorisation.
In its account, the Presidency said investigators discovered forged appointment letters, official stationery and correspondence intended to lend legitimacy to the purported council. Police also alleged that Adeyemi fraudulently opened a Central Bank of Nigeria account using forged government documents, though no public funds were transferred into it.
The case took a further twist when the Presidency revealed that Adeyemi had blamed the forged appointment letter on one Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola. Investigators later discovered that Tanimola had died in a hotel fire five days before Adeyemi’s arrest.
The Presidency also alleged that Adeyemi had a history of impersonation, citing an incident in 2016 in which he claimed to head a supposed United Nations-affiliated youth organisation that the UN later disowned.
Yet despite the government’s efforts to portray the matter as a straightforward criminal prosecution, the affair has prompted difficult questions about the workings of government.
Human rights lawyer Femi Falana argued that the executive branch had no authority to exonerate anyone implicated in the allegations and called for an independent investigation.
“The Presidency is not in a position to clear anybody,” Falana said, insisting that anti-corruption agencies should investigate the claims and explain how an unknown agency allegedly received a ₦24bn budget allocation and obtained access to the central banking system.
Adeyemi, who has denied wrongdoing, has responded with explosive counter-allegations. At a press conference, he accused Gbajabiamila of making contradictory statements about the existence of the PFIPC and another entity, the Presidential Economic Advisory Council.
He further alleged that the Chief of Staff demanded hundreds of millions of naira to secure his appointment and sought a substantial share of the agency’s proposed take-off grant — allegations for which he has provided no public evidence.
Adeyemi has called on President Bola Tinubu to establish an independent panel to investigate the disputed agencies, the circumstances surrounding Tanimola’s death and references to the organisations that he claims appear in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
The Presidency has twice publicly disowned the PFIPC in recent weeks, insisting that neither the agency nor any appointments made under its name have any legal standing within the Tinubu administration.
But with allegations of forgery, questions over government budgeting and competing claims from both sides, the affair has evolved into an uncomfortable test of transparency and accountability at the heart of Nigeria’s presidency.
