By TUNDE RAHMAN

When Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew walked into Phase III Section of the Federal Secretariat in Abuja with a forged letter and emerged with an office, signage, and a semblance of government legitimacy, he did not act alone.

That is the uncomfortable truth of the “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council” saga. Adeyemi has been charged with eight counts of fraud and forgery. But the bigger scandal is not one man’s alleged audacity. It is how a non-existent agency got close to N1.3bn in the 2026 budget, secured office space in the heart of government, hosted top government functionaries from Nigeria and abroad, and allegedly operated multiple accounts.

This is not a story about Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila versus Prince Adeyemi. This is a story about systemic failure. And until the system is properly fixed, it is quite probable that the next Adeyemi is somewhere forging another letterhead.

There are several systemic breaches in the saga that public finance analysts and other commentators have already pointed out, but they nonetheless require restating. There is a failure of due diligence in budgeting. The 2026 Appropriation Act contained N1.3bn for the “Presidential Economic Advisory Council/PFIPC”.

The problem, however, is that PFIPC has no legal backing and was never established by the Federal Government.

Top sources in the National Assembly claim the allocation entered “through a backdoor arrangement” without budget defence. For whatever his statement is worth, Adeyemi, in his interview with social media influencer, VeryDarkMan, from his hideout, said he was detained for 23 days while the budget was being prepared. “I did not prepare or defend any budget, and nobody went to defend it on my behalf,” he said. That means the appropriation to the fake agency bypassed the committees that should have asked probing questions such as: “Which agency is this?” What is its mandate? Who are its staff members?

Since the rebirth of democracy over 27 years ago, Nigeria’s budget process has been criticised for “insertions” and “undue inflation”. PFIPC is now the clearest example of why that matters. A ghost agency should not be able to get real money. If the Budget Office, House of Representatives, and Senate all missed this, our first line of fiscal defence needs a long, hard look.

There is also the issue of appointment and office verification. Adeyemi allegedly used a forged appointment letter bearing Gbajabiamila’s purported signature and counterfeit presidential letterhead to present himself as DG. Gbajabiamila’s lawyers insist he has “never had any contact whatsoever with Adeyemi”. Yet somehow, that letter was “accepted at the civil service headquarters without adequate verification”. It secured him an office in the Federal Secretariat for over a year. Up until this month, a sign for PFIPC was still up, directing visitors to the “council’s purported office” inside the Ministry of Health wing.

Just think about that. The administrative hub of the Federal Civil Service could not detect a fake appointment. If letterheads and signatures of top government functionaries are that easy to forge and accept, then no MDA is safe. Tomorrow, it could be a fake NCC or NDDC director. And next week, possibly a fake university VC.

The third system failure is about banking and due diligence. Adeyemi allegedly opened an account with the Central Bank of Nigeria for the non-existent agency. Adeyemi himself asked the most damning question in a viral video: “The same acclaimed non-existent agency has a domiciliary account, a pounds sterling account and a Treasury Single Account, all domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria. Is it even possible to open an account with fictitious documents in a commercial bank in Nigeria today, let alone at the CBN?”

He also allegedly operated 34 bank accounts linked to fictitious agencies. Banks and government revenue platforms are required by law to conduct a KYC (know your customer) check. How did 34 accounts get opened? Who approved the TSA linkage? The EFCC has recovered items and made arrests, but the institutions that enabled the financial plumbing have not been named.

But how does the Chief of Staff come into all of this? Where does he fit into, for the life of me? Adeyemi alleged that Gbajabiamila demanded 48% of a N27.4bn take-off grant and collected N400m through proxies.

Gbajabiamila says he has never met Adeyemi in his life and no proxy has acted on his behalf. His lawyers call the allegations “false and gravely defamatory” and have slammed a N10bn suit on Adeyemi. Adeyemi himself admitted in the VDM interview that he never met Gbajabiamila.

Truth is, Gbajabiamila’s office does not issue appointments. Presidential Spokesman Bayo Onanuga had pointed out that much in a statement. The matter of appointment is the prerogative of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, which is the clearing house for all appointments made by the President. Even then, the CoS’s letterhead and signature were also found to have been forged.

It was the Office of the CoS that first “blew the whistle” about the fake agency after the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council flagged it. Gbajabiamila caused a disclaimer to be placed on Adeyemi following which he was arrested by the police and arraigned in court.

It is instructive that President Bola Tinubu has directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission to investigate the entire scandal. That is a commendable step. The President also did not leave the duration of the investigation open-ended; he ordered that the probe be concluded within a month. It was also gathered that KPMG may be brought in if there are larger accounting issues to untangle.

Also, whereas the House of Representatives has elected to launch its own investigations into the matter, the Senate has suspended its own probe, rightfully backing the President’s action.

My point is that the investigation and the legal process must run their course. The CoS should not be guillotined, literally. There should be a presumption of innocence until he is proven guilty.

But the more important point is this: even if every allegation against the CoS is false, as it appears to be, the fact that his name and signature could be forged, and used to access government property still suggests some vulnerability in the administrative controls.

All of that has made a reform of the system imperative.

Arresting Adeyemi so he can answer for his serious misdeeds is necessary. However, that would not be sufficient. Stopping there would be akin to treating malaria with paracetamol.

In my view, at least four immediate reforms are required at this point. One is the budget integrity law. No allocation should appear in the Appropriation Act without being scrutinised by the relevant committee and published with a sponsoring MDA, a legal instrument, and a staff list. A “ghost agency” clause should trigger an automatic audit by the Auditor-General.

Secondly, there is a need for appointment verification portal. Every federal appointment letter must be logged on a public, verifiable portal managed by the SGF. MDAs should not accept physical letters without a portal code. That way, forgery becomes instantly detectable.

Thirdly, the Federal Secretariat must have more access control. A forensic audit of all offices, signage, and allocations in the secretariat is desirable. Any office space given in the last three years without SGF/HoS approval should be revoked and investigated.

The fourth, and perhaps more importantly, is the need for financial institution accountability. The CBN and commercial banks must explain how accounts were allegedly opened for PFIPC and 34 other “agencies.” The Bank Verification Number and CAC database should be crosschecked before any government-linked account is activated.

In the final analysis, Prince Adeyemi allegedly gamed the system. But systems are gamed because they are weak. The PFIPC scandal is a stress test, and the system failed at three points: budget, appointment, and banking.

•Rahman is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media & Special Duties.

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