The Presidency has said it will ensure that officials within government institutions who allegedly enabled Prince Adeniyi Mathew to operate a fictitious presidential agency are identified and prosecuted, describing the suspect as an “irredeemable con artist” exploiting public perceptions of corruption to evade justice.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, made the remarks on Friday in a post on his X handle, where he accused Adeyemi of attempting to drag the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, into his alleged multi-billion naira fraud to deflect attention from the criminal charges against him.
Ajayi said investigators from the Department of State Services, the Nigeria Police Force and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had been tasked with uncovering the internal collaborators who allegedly allowed Adeyemi to forge presidential appointment letters, operate 34 bank accounts in the names of fictitious government agencies, host foreign diplomats and open a Central Bank of Nigeria account while posing as Director-General of the non-existent 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 said.
The presidential aide argued that Adeyemi was deliberately exploiting widespread public distrust of government officials by making corruption allegations against the Chief of Staff.
“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 said.
Ajayi added that Adeyemi understood the country’s public psychology and was using it to shield himself from accountability.
“He is an irredeemable con artist who is attempting to drag the name of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, into his criminal enterprise. The Chief of Staff is simply his last straw,” he stated.
While acknowledging that weaknesses within the system allowed the alleged scheme to thrive for months, Ajayi maintained that the same institutions ultimately exposed it.
He said many critics had focused on the failure that enabled the operation but ignored the fact that government agencies eventually detected the fraud and acted against it.
According to him, officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs became suspicious after the purported council began carrying out investment-related activities and hosting diplomatic engagements without coordinating with the appropriate authorities.
The two institutions subsequently lodged formal complaints, triggering investigations.
“That is a system functioning as it should. It is a system capable of detecting an aberration,” Ajayi said.
The statement marks the Presidency’s third official response to the controversy surrounding Adeyemi.
On June 11, 2026, Gbajabiamila issued a public disclaimer stating that the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council had no legal status and that no appointments had been made under its name.
On July 1, the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed that Adeyemi had been arraigned before the Federal High Court since November 27, 2025, on an eight-count charge. He alleged that the suspect operated 34 bank accounts in the names of fictitious government agencies, fraudulently opened a CBN account by deceiving the Office of the Accountant-General, and relied on forged presidential appointment documents allegedly procured by a key witness who later died in a hotel fire days before Adeyemi’s arrest.
Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has, however, argued that the Presidency lacks the constitutional authority to absolve anyone connected to the matter. He called on the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to conduct an independent investigation into both Gbajabiamila and Adeyemi.
Falana also demanded explanations over reports that ₦24 billion was budgeted for the non-existent agency and how it allegedly succeeded in opening a CBN account.
Adeyemi is scheduled to appear before the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 27, 2026, alongside two co-defendants who remain at large.
