The Presidency has dismissed bribery allegations against the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, describing the claims by Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi as false and maintaining that the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), which Adeyemi claims to head, does not exist.
Adeyemi, who has presented himself as the Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council/Presidential Economic Advisory Council, had accused Gbajabiamila of demanding 48 per cent of a proposed N27.39 billion take-off grant for the agency and collecting N400 million through proxies to secure his appointment, with an outstanding balance of N200 million.
He also called on President Bola Tinubu to constitute an independent investigative panel to probe the allegations, review official documents, investigate alleged attempts on his life and compel the Chief of Staff to step aside pending the outcome of the investigation.
Responding in a statement on Wednesday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, described Adeyemi as an impostor peddling falsehoods and insisted that the agency he claims to head is fictitious.
According to Onanuga, the Office of the Chief of Staff had, as far back as October 2025, alerted the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigeria Police Force to the activities of individuals allegedly forging appointment letters and impersonating government officials.
He said the complaint followed reports from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission that another body was operating at cross-purposes with it. The petition to security agencies was accompanied by copies of forged appointment letters, requests for diplomatic notes and photographs obtained from the alleged agency’s website.
Onanuga added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had also sought clarification on the status of Adeyemi’s organisation after he reportedly held a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Abuja without the ministry’s knowledge.
He explained that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation later sought clarification from the Chief of Staff, who denied issuing any appointment letter to Adeyemi, stressing that appointments are made only through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and that the alleged agency was non-existent.
The presidential spokesman further said police investigations established that Adeyemi forged his appointment letter and other official documents, falsely presented himself as a government appointee and used fake documents to solicit diplomatic support for visa applications.
According to him, investigators also discovered that Adeyemi operated 34 bank accounts, including nine in the names of fictitious agencies, and fraudulently opened a Central Bank of Nigeria account by misleading the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. He, however, said no government funds were transferred into the account.
The controversy has nevertheless persisted after checks showed that the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council was listed in the 2026 Appropriation Act with a budgetary allocation of about N1.3 billion for recurrent and capital expenditure.
Adeyemi has argued that the inclusion of the council in the national budget, as well as its reported engagements with government agencies including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and other institutions, raises questions over the Presidency’s insistence that the agency does not exist.
Reacting to the development, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar called for the suspension of Gbajabiamila and an independent investigation into the allegations, saying the matter had become a national scandal that required transparency and accountability.
However, a coalition of civic and political groups defended the Chief of Staff, describing the allegations as unsubstantiated and politically motivated, while urging the public to allow due process to take its course.
