By Felix Princewel
It began, as these things often do, with a complaint. The Nigerian Investment Promotion Council, a legitimate government agency, noticed that another body was functioning at cross-purposes with it. They took their concerns to the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President. That letter, dated October 17, 2025, set in motion a chain of events that has now consumed our public discourse for the better part of a week.
The Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, we were told, wrote to the Department of State Services and the Police, requesting an investigation into what he described as “fraudsters and imposters” forging appointment letters purportedly from his office. We were also told that he attached a copy of the forged appointment letter, a request for a note verbale to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and photographs obtained from the illegal agency’s website.
What followed, according to the narrative brought before the public, was a cascade of official correspondence. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to the Office of the National Security Adviser on October 15, requesting clarification on the status of Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew and his so-called agency. The Office of the National Security Adviser wrote to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on October 20. The OSGF wrote to the Chief of Staff on October 29, seeking clarification.
The Chief of Staff responded twice. On October 27, he wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stating that he had never issued an appointment letter to Adeyemi. On November 5, he wrote to the OSGF, again denying any knowledge of Adeyemi or his council.
The police arrested Adeyemi on October 27. They searched his office at the Federal Secretariat and his home in Suleja. They recovered documents and thereafter took his statement. He was subsequently charged with eight counts bordering on forgery and impersonation at the Federal High Court in Abuja. His trial is set for July 27.
That is the story the Presidency has told. And it is a compelling one. A con artist, a fake agency, a system that eventually caught on. The State House issued its version of events yesterday, a detailed statement running to over 1,200 words, laying out the timeline, the investigations, the charges, and the disclaimer that the agency Adeyemi purportedly headed was fictitious from start to finish.
But a story this elaborate leaves traces. And it is those traces that deserve closer examination.
Let us begin with the budget. The 2026 Appropriation Act, passed by the National Assembly and signed into law by the President, contains on pages 50 and 51 a line item for the “Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.” The allocation is N1.3 billion. The breakdown includes N182.5 million for logistics for a World Investment Summit scheduled for November 2025.
The Presidency has come out to say this agency does not exist. Yet it is in the budget. This is not a matter of interpretation. The document is public. The question, then, is not whether the agency exists. The question is how a non-existent agency found its way into the most important fiscal document of the Nigerian state.
The budget process is not a secret. It begins with the executive, moves to the National Assembly, undergoes scrutiny by various committees, and returns to the President for assent. At each stage, there are officials whose job it is to review and verify. Someone inserted that line. Someone defended it before the relevant committee. Someone signed off on it. The Presidency has not told us who.
Then there is the matter of the CBN account. Adeyemi, according to police reports, opened a Treasury Single Account at the Central Bank of Nigeria by misleading the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. The police say no government money was transferred into the account. But the account existed. It was opened. Someone at the Accountant-General’s office approved the request. Someone at the CBN processed it. The Presidency has not told us who.
There is also the question of the Federal Secretariat office. Adeyemi operated from the second floor of Phase III. He held meetings there. He hosted foreigners. He conducted himself as a public official. He did this for months. The Federal Secretariat is not a private property. It is managed by the Federal Government. Someone allocated that space. Someone approved his occupancy. The Presidency has not told us who.
And then there are the meetings. Adeyemi met with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, on July 25, 2025. The meeting was reported by Punch newspaper. Photographs were taken. Kalu welcomed the collaboration, citing Fitch’s upgrade of Nigeria’s credit rating and reaffirming legislative support for investment-driven growth. Adeyemi announced a World Investment Summit. The Deputy Speaker’s office did not verify his credentials. They did not check with the Presidency. They simply accepted him.
Adeyemi also met with the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, in September 2025. He met with NERC officials. He engaged with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At no point did any of these institutions pick up the phone and call the Office of the Chief of Staff to confirm. No one asked the simple question: Does this agency exist?
The Presidency says Adeyemi is a con artist who forged documents and fooled everyone. This may be true. But if he fooled the Deputy Speaker, the EFCC chairman, NERC officials, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Accountant-General, and the entire budget process, then we are not dealing with a mere con artist. We are dealing with a systemic failure of monumental proportions.
Now we come to the allegations against the Chief of Staff. Adeyemi has said, in his statement to the police and in subsequent public comments, that Gbajabiamila demanded 48 per cent of a N27.3 billion take-off grant. He claims he paid N400 million by proxy to secure his appointment, with N200 million still outstanding. These are serious allegations, and they come from a man with a documented history of deception stretching back to 2016. That does not make them false. It does not make them true either. It simply means we cannot take his word for anything, which is precisely why the questions that surround this entire saga cannot be answered by his testimony alone.
The Presidency has dismissed these claims. They point to the fact that Gbajabiamila was the one who blew the whistle. They note that Adeyemi has a history of fraudulent misrepresentation dating back to 2016. They say his word is worthless.
But blowing the whistle does not immunise a man from scrutiny. It is possible for someone to expose one crime while being implicated in another. It is possible for a man to be both the one who called the police and the one who enabled the fraud in the first place. The problem is that this is not the first time the Chief of Staff has found himself linked to allegations of financial impropriety. I am not saying he is guilty of anything. I am saying the pattern is there, and Nigerians old enough to remember the House of Representatives leadership bribery scandal in 2018, or the more recent claims about contract awards, will not forget so easily.
All of this may be true. But the Presidency has not adequately addressed the central contradiction in their own narrative. How does a non-existent agency get into the budget? How does a fake agency open a CBN account? How does a con artist secure meetings with the Deputy Speaker, the EFCC chairman, and multiple government bodies? How does an alleged accomplice die in a hotel fire five days before the con artist is arrested?
On that last question, the State House statement is silent. Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola, the man Adeyemi named as his accomplice, died on October 22, five days before Adeyemi was arrested. The police say they saw his body at the morgue. But was his death investigated? Was it ruled accidental? Was it suspicious? A man who could have provided answers about how this scam was organised died at a most convenient moment. The Presidency has not told us what they know about this.
These questions do not go away simply because we have dismissed the man asking them.
The Adeyemi saga raises uncomfortable questions about the very institutions of state. The budget office. The Accountant-General’s office. The CBN. The Federal Secretariat. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All of them failed to detect a fraud that was, by any measure, not particularly sophisticated. And all of them operate under the supervision of the Chief of Staff.
I am not suggesting that Gbajabiamila is guilty of anything more than being surrounded by people who failed to do their jobs. But that is precisely the point. The Chief of Staff sets the tone for the entire administration. He is the administrative gateway to the Presidency. If his office did not detect this fraud, if the institutions under his purview did not flag it, then the problem is not just Adeyemi. The problem is the system that allowed him to thrive.
The State House statement is careful. It is detailed. It is convincing. But it does not answer the most important question: Who is responsible for the institutional failures that made this possible? Who inserted that line in the budget? Who opened that CBN account? Who allocated that office space? Who defended the allocation before the National Assembly?
These are not rhetorical questions. They deserve answers. Not press releases. Not police reports. Real answers from the appropriate authorities.
Adeyemi may be a fraud. He may be a con artist. He may be a serial liar with a history of deception. But he did not operate alone. He operated within a system that failed at every level. And unless that system is fixed, there will be another Adeyemi. And another. And another.
The next Adeyemi is already out there. And he will not make the same mistakes. The only question is whether this government will learn from its own.
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