Presidency orders probe of officials allegedly linked to fake government agencies

The Presidency has called on security and anti-corruption agencies to identify, arrest and prosecute any government officials found to have collaborated with Prince Matthew Adeniyi Adeyemi in the alleged operation of two fictitious federal government agencies.

Adeyemi is accused of creating the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and the Presidential Economic Advisory Council using documents allegedly forged to appear as official Presidency records.

In a statement posted on his verified X account, Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, said investigators must go beyond Adeyemi and uncover the network of public officials who allegedly enabled him to operate for an extended period.

Ajayi urged the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate officials across relevant government institutions who may have facilitated the alleged fraud.

According to him, public discussions have largely overlooked the fact that government institutions themselves detected the alleged scheme and reported it.

He said officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), working with officers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, first discovered inconsistencies in Adeyemi’s activities before alerting the appropriate authorities.

“Contrary to the anything-goes narrative being promoted, it was the system itself that raised the red flag and dealt with it administratively,” Ajayi said.

However, he maintained that Adeyemi could not have sustained the alleged operation without assistance from insiders.

> “What is not in doubt is that internal collaborators enabled Adeyemi to get this far. That is precisely what investigators from the DSS, the Police and the EFCC must now unravel.

> “The criminal network within the affected institutions must be dismantled and everyone found to have played a role should be arrested and prosecuted,” he added.

The Presidency had earlier disowned the two organisations, insisting that they do not exist as agencies of the Federal Government.

It also reiterated that the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, neither authorised Adeyemi’s activities nor had any connection with the alleged organisations.

Ajayi accused Adeyemi of attempting to implicate Gbajabiamila as a diversionary tactic to deflect attention from the criminal allegations against him.

“In Nigeria, the easiest and most believable allegation anyone can throw at a public officer is corruption.

“Once that accusation is thrown into the mix, the water is polluted, the lines are blurred and everyone is kept busy arguing over distractions rather than the real issues,” he wrote.

He described Adeyemi as “an irredeemable con artist,” alleging that his accusations against the Chief of Staff represented a desperate attempt to avoid criminal liability.

The Presidency maintained that the matter should be viewed as an alleged fraud uncovered by government institutions rather than evidence of complicity at the highest levels of government.

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