How a Fake Presidential Council Ended Up with a Budget of Almost $1m in Nigeria
Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, PFIPC's director general, denies any wrongdoing.
How did an organisation with government offices, civil servants, and a line in Nigeria's national budget turn out to have no legal basis for existing?
For much of 2025, nothing distinguished the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) from the many other agencies comprising Nigeria's federal bureaucracy.
It presented itself as a body created to attract foreign investment into Africa's most populous country, operating from an office inside the Federal Secretariat in Abuja—the vast complex housing Nigeria's government ministries.
Career civil servants were assigned there and managed a website on the government's official ".gov.ng" domain. It even secured approval to hire over 300 staff, despite a government freeze on public-sector recruitment. Although the website has since been taken down, its Instagram account remains active.
Its director general, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, met cabinet ministers, financial regulators, the head of Nigeria's anti-corruption agency, and foreign diplomats. When the 2026 national budget was signed into law, the council was included with an allocation of 1.3 billion naira ($950,000; £700,000).
Then, last month, the government declared it was all a fabrication.
The presidency announced that the PFIPC had never been legally established by law, presidential order, or any official instrument.
Its apparent legitimacy, officials said, was based on a single forged document—an appointment letter claiming that President Bola Tinubu had appointed Adeyemi as the council's director general. Investigators say the letter bore the forged signature of Femi Gbajabiamila, the president's chief of staff and most senior aide.
Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew insists the council was lawfully established in 2024 and that he was properly appointed. He has accused senior officials of demanding bribes to secure his position and later attempting to seize the council's funds. The presidency denies these claims.
Although he has gone into hiding citing fears for his life, he has stated he will appear in court later this month to face charges including forgery and impersonation. Police have launched a manhunt for him.
However, the scandal has expanded beyond the issue of one forged letter.
Investigators are now examining the extent to which the Nigerian state machinery acted on Adeyemi's behalf—and who within it permitted this to occur.
Nigeria's President Demands Answers on Fake Agency Setup
To establish an agency like the PFIPC in Nigeria, it must pass through some of the most powerful government offices: the secretary to the government of the federation (effectively the government's chief administrator), the head of the civil service, the accountant-general who controls public accounts, the budget office, and finally parliament, which must approve the spending into law.
Babachir Lawal has held a key position in this chain.
He served as secretary to the government of the federation—the office responsible for assigning agencies their space and status—under Tinubu's predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
"There's no way [that office] in a normal system would not know that the agency is fake," he told the BBC. "You cannot create a budget code for yourself without the budget office knowing. There must be connivance with officials within."
His conclusion was blunt: "You must have officials within the system who will validate your corrupt behaviour."
Oluseun Onigbinde reaches a similar conclusion through a different approach.
He co-founded BudgIT, a Nigerian transparency group that first highlighted the council's funding. He notes that the PFIPC does not appear in the budgets for 2023, 2024, or 2025 but then emerges in 2026—fully formed and with its own budget code.
"This agency actually emanated and found itself in the budget from the executive," he said—meaning it originated from within the president's side of government, not parliament. "The functional head of the agency cannot just do that alone. It has to come from the State House [the president's office]," he told the BBC.
Onigbinde outlined the checks a legitimate agency must pass through: an office in the federal secretariat, sign-off from the civil service, a budget code, and multi-step approval to open a bank account. He said the "lone impostor" explanation was insufficient.
"I don't know how you go through all these tracks and you still come out at the end and this agency is fake," he said. "It does have backing. The government just has to be honest about who exactly are the people involved."
The government's account has shifted. Its spokesman initially said Adeyemi had "fraudulently opened" an account at the Central Bank of Nigeria. The accountant-general's office later stated no such account was ever activated and that no public funds were released.
Even if no money left the treasury, the affair demonstrates how easily the appearance of a genuine government institution can be fabricated in Nigeria—a country actively courting foreign investors, whom this council was ostensibly established to attract.
The BBC asked the presidency how the agency obtained its office, staff, and budget line, and why it prefers an internal investigation over an independent one. The presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Lawyers for Gbajabiamila stated his position in a legal letter and declined interviews. In that letter, seen by the BBC, they described Adeyemi's allegations as false and defamatory, said the two men have never met, and demanded a retraction or face criminal and civil proceedings, including a claim for 10 billion naira in damages.
President Tinubu has ordered the country's anti-corruption commission to investigate and report within 30 days, including on "the role of any public officer" who may have assisted. Critics note that he made this order while publicly declaring "100% confidence" in Gbajabiamila, who is listed as a witness in Adeyemi's legal case. Opposition parties, senior lawyers, and campaigners are demanding an independent judicial inquiry instead.
Context of Corruption and Governance in Nigeria
Nigeria is no stranger to large-scale corruption, but previous scandals have often ended with many names mentioned but few convictions.
Tinubu took office in 2023 promising reform and cites more than 7,000 convictions and over 500 billion naira recovered in two years. Critics argue these figures mostly involve low-level internet fraudsters, while politically connected individuals are rarely prosecuted.
What distinguishes the PFIPC case is not the amount of money—modest compared to some previous scandals—but the method. This was not money skimmed from a contract; it was, allegedly, an entire government arm created from nothing.
Onigbinde describes it as "a symptom of the dysfunctional budgeting process." He connects it to the rapid growth in the number of government bodies: a 2012 official review recommended reducing Nigeria's agencies, but their number has instead roughly doubled to over 1,200.
"It's a costly waste of public resource," he said—especially in a country heavily in debt.
As the investigation expanded, its sharpest impact was felt far from Abuja. Police searching for Adeyemi, who had gone into hiding, visited his family home in Ogbomoso in the southwestern Oyo state and detained his elderly father, Chief Adetunji Adeniyi.
Speaking to Yoruba, Chief Adeniyi described officers forcing their way in.
"They tore off all the barbed wire and broke the fence and the door," he said. They searched the house, took the family's phones, and returned the next morning, he added. "I was so worried. I was just saying: 'What is this? Are they trying to kill me?'"
He defended his son.
"My son is an easy-going person, not a troublemaker," he said. "I am very sad at all the reports that I am hearing. I am really confused by it all."
Adeyemi's lawyer, prominent human rights advocate Femi Falana, told the BBC that Adeniyi had since been released and that detaining a relative in place of a suspect is illegal in Nigeria. Police spokesperson Anietie Okokon Edem Iniedu said the elderly man had not been arrested but was invited to assist with inquiries.
Falana, who declined to discuss the case itself, said Adeyemi had assured him he would appear for trial, though Falana does not know his client's whereabouts. He echoed broader calls for higher-level officials to be investigated.
"This guy should not just be sacrificed alone," he said. "Those who used him to achieve their own objectives will have to be exposed."
The BBC has requested comment from the body in charge of the investigation—the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC)—but had not received a reply at the time of publication.
Adeyemi is scheduled to appear in court in Abuja on 27 July, with Gbajabiamila and 10 others listed as prosecution witnesses. The anti-corruption commission's report is expected shortly thereafter.
Both will be evaluated against the key question: whether they identify officials who allowed a phantom agency to acquire offices, staff, and public funds—or whether the case ends with one man, still in hiding, insisting the council he led was legitimate.
