It is not every day that a story comes along that makes you question whether you are still living in the same country you thought you knew. But when I first came across the tale of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, I had to read it twice. Then I put down my phone and just stared at the ceiling for a while and said to myself, “it has happened again but may this be that last of them”. It sounds more like a prayer but again, that’s what it is.
Here is what we know. There is an agency called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. Or rather, there was an agency, because the Presidency has declared it never existed. It had a director-general, a man by the name of Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew. It had offices at the Federal Secretariat. It had accounts at the Central Bank of Nigeria. It had a budget allocation of over N1.3 billion in the 2026 Appropriation Act. It had over 300 staff members according to investigations, allegedly recruited through the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. It held meetings with foreign diplomats. It paid courtesy visits to the EFCC and other top government functionaries, including the National Assembly. It operated as though it were a legitimate arm of government. The only problem is that, according to the Presidency, it was never legitimate at all.
I have been covering this country long enough to know that strange things happen in government. But this is not strange. This is absurd. And the more I think about it, the more I realise that the PFIPC scandal is not really about Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew. It is not even about the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, whose name has been dragged into the matter. It is about something much larger, much more troubling. It is about a system that allowed a phantom agency to slip through every institutional safeguard, every layer of approval, every check and balance that was supposed to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening. The Budget Office did not catch it. The National Assembly did not question it. The Central Bank did not verify it. The Head of Civil Service did not scrutinise it. The question we must ask ourselves is simple: how?
Let us pause here and consider the sheer audacity of what we are being asked to believe. The Presidency, in its effort to defend Gbajabiamila, wants Nigerians to accept that one man—one man—single-handedly created an office for himself, secured office space in a government facility, opened accounts at the Central Bank, held meetings with foreign embassy delegations, and even paid courtesy visits to the EFCC, all without the knowledge or collaboration of anyone in government. If this were a movie, we would dismiss it as unrealistic. But this is Nigeria, where reality often outpaces fiction. The question, however, is not whether Adeyemi is guilty of fraud. The question is whether we are expected to believe that he did all of this alone. Because if we are, then we must also believe that our institutions are so incompetent, so porous, so completely blind, that a single fraudster can walk through every door and no one stops him.
And this is where the National Assembly comes in. If there is one institution that should be thoroughly embarrassed by this scandal, it is the legislature. I read somewhere that some lawmakers are now demanding investigations. Some are calling for Gbajabiamila to step aside. But where were they when the 2026 budget was being passed? Did any committee ask to see the legal instrument establishing the PFIPC? Did any lawmaker question why a new agency was suddenly appearing in the budget with over N1.3 billion in allocations? Or did they simply wave it through, as they have done with thousands of other questionable insertions? If the answer is no, then the same lawmakers who are now beating their chests about accountability have no moral standing to do so. You cannot be the arsonist and the firefighter at the same time.
BudgIT’s report on the 2025 budget tells us that the National Assembly inserted 11,122 projects worth N6.93 trillion into the budget without adequate justification. Let me repeat that for emphasis: N6.93 trillion. That is more than the combined allocations to health and education. These insertions include absurdities like N400 million for scholarships at the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation in Ilorin—an agency whose mandate has nothing to do with scholarships—and N3 billion for utility vehicles at the Federal Cooperative College in Oji River. If the National Assembly can insert N6.93 trillion into the budget without justification, why should anyone be surprised that N1.3 billion found its way to a phantom agency? The PFIPC scandal is not an aberration. It is the logical endpoint of a system where lawmakers have turned budget oversight into a conveyor belt for political patronage.
Now, let us talk about the Presidency’s defence. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, has dismissed attempts to link Gbajabiamila to the alleged fraud, describing Adeyemi as an “irredeemable con artist” attempting to drag the Chief of Staff into his criminal enterprise. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps Gbajabiamila is completely innocent. But here is the problem: the Presidency cannot have it both ways. If Adeyemi is indeed an irredeemable con artist who fooled everyone, then the system is fundamentally broken. But if the system is not broken, then Adeyemi had help. And that help had to come from somewhere. The Presidency cannot claim that the system worked while also claiming that one man single-handedly bypassed every safeguard. Those two things cannot both be true.
And this brings me to the most troubling part of this entire saga. The ADC has named ten government officials and institutions for investigation, including the Chief of Staff, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Head of Civil Service, the Director-General of the Budget Office, and the National Assembly oversight committees. That is a long list of powerful people. And the longer the list, the greater the temptation to sweep everything under the carpet. I have seen it happen too many times. A scandal breaks. Everyone points fingers. The small fish are arrested. The big fish swim away. And Nigerians move on to the next scandal, exhausted and defeated.
But Mr. President, this one is different. This one is not just about corruption. It is about the very integrity of the institutions that govern this country. If the Budget Office cannot verify the existence of the agencies it funds, what is the point of the Budget Office? If the National Assembly cannot scrutinise the budget it passes, what is the point of the National Assembly? If the Central Bank cannot verify the legitimacy of the accounts it opens, what is the point of the Central Bank? If the Head of Civil Service cannot verify the legality of the recruitment it approves, what is the point of the Civil Service? These are questions that demand answers. And they cannot be answered by prosecuting one man and calling it a day.
This is a serious issue. And it must be treated with the seriousness it deserves. No matter who is involved. No matter how powerful. No matter how close to the Presidency. If Gbajabiamila is innocent, an independent investigation will clear his name. If he is guilty, he must face the consequences. That is how accountability works. That is how trust is rebuilt. But if the government chooses to shield the powerful while prosecuting the powerless, then Nigerians will know—once again—that the anti-corruption fight is selective. And that is a lesson this country cannot afford to learn one more time.
The PFIPC scandal is a test. It is a test of whether the President’s anti-corruption war is real or just talk. It is a test of whether the institutions of government can function as checks on power or whether they have become mere rubber stamps. And it is a test of whether this country will finally learn the lessons of its many scandals or whether it will continue to repeat them. The ball is in the President’s court. Nigerians are watching. The international community is watching. Investors are watching. And history will remember what happens next. Let us hope the verdict is one we can all be proud of.
By Eshioromeh Sebastian
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