Presidency vows to track down those who helped Adeyemi run fake agency

The Presidency declared on Friday that anyone within government who helped Prince Adeniyi Mathew run a fake presidential agency for months will be found and punished. They also asked security agencies to break apart what they called a criminal network inside some federal offices.

Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, made this known in a post on his X handle. He accused Adeniyi Mathew of being a "con artist" who is using the public concern about corruption to escape facing the law. He said Mathew is trying to pull the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, into his multi-billion naira fraud.

Ajayi mentioned that the Department of State Services, the Police, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are looking into how Adeyemi was able to forge presidential appointment letters, open 34 bank accounts under fake government names, and host foreign ambassadors while pretending to be the Director-General of a non-existent agency called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

"What is not in doubt is that internal collaborators enabled Adeniyi 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," Ajayi stated.

The aide claimed that Adeyemi is abusing public anger about corruption to avoid facing the law by linking Gbajabiamila's name to his issues. "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," Ajayi explained.

Ajayi added, "Matthew Adeniyi understands Nigerian public psychology, and he is exploiting it expertly to shield himself. He is a con artist who is trying to drag the name of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, into his criminal activities. The Chief of Staff is simply his last straw."

Ajayi admitted that there are weaknesses in the system that allowed Adeyemi's scam to succeed but said that many commentators missed the fact that the system eventually caught him. "Many commentators have rightly pointed to the systemic failure that allowed such an elaborate fraudulent scheme to flourish. Daredevil criminals around government institutions aiming to pull off big scams are common worldwide. Some succeed, many fail."

He continued, "The part many commentators have overlooked, however, is how that same system eventually detected the fraud and fished him out. Contrary to the narrative being promoted, it was the system itself that raised the red flag and dealt with it administratively."

Ajayi noted that officials from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noticed something was off when Adeyemi's so-called council started hosting diplomatic meetings without their knowledge. Both agencies filed formal complaints.

"That is a system functioning as it should. It is a system capable of detecting an aberration," Ajayi said. Thursday's post marks the third official response from the Presidency regarding the Adeyemi issue.

On June 11, 2026, Gbajabiamila publicly stated that the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council had no official standing and that no appointments were made in its name. On July 1, Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, said Adeyemi had been charged with eight criminal counts at the Federal High Court since November 27, 2025, including maintaining those 34 bank accounts and fraudulently opening a CBN account. The key witness who allegedly helped him with his fake appointment letter died in a hotel fire just five days before Adeyemi's arrest on October 27, 2025.

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has challenged the Presidency, saying it cannot clear anyone in this matter and has called for the ICPC to investigate both Gbajabiamila and Adeyemi. He also wants to know how N24bn was budgeted for the fake agency and how it managed to open a CBN account.

Adeyemi is set to appear before the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 27, 2026, along with two accomplices who are still on the run.