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| Adeniyi Adeyemi |
A Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday, October 12, 2026, struck out the eight-count criminal charge of forgery, conspiracy and impersonation against Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, the self-styled director-general of the purported Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), clearing the way for his fresh arraignment before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Justice Mohammed Umar granted the application by the Federal Government to terminate the proceedings after the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), informed the court that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had reviewed the case file originally filed by the Inspector-General of Police and identified jurisdictional defects. Oyedepo explained that the alleged forged documents central to Adeyemi’s operations of the purported agency fell within the jurisdiction of the FCT High Court rather than the Federal High Court. A fresh charge has already been filed at the FCT High Court, he said, with plans to arraign Adeyemi without delay. Defence counsel Ibrahim Angulu (SAN) did not oppose the application.
The ruling ends the immediate trial before Justice Umar but does not free Adeyemi or end the prosecution. The 38-year-old, who has remained in custody since his July 14 arrest in Osun State, continues to face serious allegations that he orchestrated one of the most audacious institutional deceptions in recent Nigerian public life.
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The PFIPC saga, which first erupted into public view in mid-2026, exposed profound weaknesses in Nigeria’s bureaucratic verification systems.
Adeyemi, an indigene of Ogbomoso in Oyo State who describes himself as a graduate of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, presented himself from around 2024 as the head of both the PFIPC (sometimes styled as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council) and the defunct Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC). He occupied office space on the second floor of the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase III, in Abuja, recruited or claimed to recruit staff, organised meetings with diplomats and government officials, and sought collaboration with ministries.
Most strikingly, the organisation appeared in the 2026 Appropriation Act with an allocation of approximately N1.3 billion (roughly $950,000 at the time). It also secured the creation of foreign-currency accounts at the Central Bank of Nigeria through processes involving the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, although officials later stated the accounts remained dormant and no public funds were disbursed. The Accountant-General’s Office confirmed that PFIPC never operated a proper account or received salaries or allocations in practice.
Investigators from the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), ordered by President Bola Tinubu in early July 2026 to probe the matter within 30 days, concluded in an interim report that the PFIPC had never been established by any law, executive order or valid government instrument. The appointment letter Adeyemi brandished—purportedly signed by Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila on behalf of the President—was found to be forged, along with related gazettes and legislative instruments. The ICPC further alleged that Adeyemi created at least two additional fictitious entities: the FCT Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA) and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency and Public-Private Partnership (FIPA-PPP), using similar forged documents to open bank accounts. Police investigations linked him to around 34 bank accounts, nine of them in the names of these purported agencies.
Adeyemi has consistently denied wrongdoing. He has claimed the council was legitimately established in 2024 to attract foreign investment, that he personally approached Budget Office officials to secure its inclusion in appropriation bills, and that he never met Gbajabiamila. In interviews after his arrest, including one with social media figure VeryDarkMan, he alleged that he paid N400 million (reportedly in dollars) through a late associate, Dolapo Tanimola, to facilitate his appointment, though he expressed uncertainty about whether the funds reached the Chief of Staff. The Presidency has firmly rejected any link to Gbajabiamila, noting that the Chief of Staff himself petitioned the police and Department of State Services in October 2025 after detecting forged documents bearing his office’s purported signature. Officials describe Adeyemi as a sophisticated impostor who exploited gaps in inter-agency communication and document verification.
Institutional Failures Under Scrutiny
The case has prompted uncomfortable questions about how successive layers of government—ranging from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Head of the Civil Service to the Budget Office, Central Bank, and even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—processed requests from an entity that lacked any legal foundation. Documents later surfaced showing that the SGF’s office forwarded Adeyemi’s request for office accommodation from recovered federal properties managed by the EFCC.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry reported discrepancies to the National Security Adviser’s office in late 2025 after receiving collaboration requests for a proposed World Investment Summit, which it rejected. The House of Representatives set up an ad-hoc committee that uncovered further financial trails, including an alleged N400 million transaction involving a company that claimed Adeyemi induced payments under the guise of securing contracts tied to an official residence.
Analysts and civil society groups have pointed to the episode as symptomatic of deeper governance challenges: weak internal controls, over-reliance on paper documentation without robust digital verification, and a culture in which official letterheads and seals still carry disproportionate weight. That a single individual could, for nearly two years, occupy federal office space, engage diplomats, and appear in the national budget without triggering earlier red flags has fuelled calls for systemic reforms in how new agencies are created, recognised and funded.
Legal Path Forward and Broader Implications
Adeyemi was first arrested in October 2025 following Gbajabiamila’s petition, then released or managed to evade full proceedings until a bench warrant was issued after he failed to honour multiple summonses.
He was re-arrested on July 14, 2026, in Osun State by the police Intelligence Response Team. Arraigned on September 30 before Justice Umar on the original eight-count charge, he pleaded not guilty and was remanded in Kuje Correctional Centre. His bail application on health grounds had been pending when the government applied to withdraw the charges.
The jurisdictional shift to the FCT High Court is not unusual in Nigerian criminal practice when the Attorney-General reviews a police-filed charge and determines that certain offences—particularly those involving documents whose authenticity or use is tied to the capital territory—belong more properly in the FCT courts. Prosecutors have signalled that the new charge will proceed expeditiously. Adeyemi remains in custody pending the fresh arraignment.
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Beyond the individual prosecution, the PFIPC affair serves as a cautionary tale about the fragility of institutional integrity. In a country where public trust in government processes is already strained by corruption perceptions and bureaucratic opacity, the ability of a phantom agency to mimic legitimacy so effectively underscores the urgent need for digital identity systems for government entities, real-time inter-agency verification protocols, and stricter parliamentary oversight of budget line items that appear without clear legislative or executive backing.
As the case moves to the FCT High Court, Nigerians will be watching closely—not only for the outcome of Adeyemi’s trial, but for whether the revelations prompt lasting reforms that make such elaborate deceptions far harder to sustain in the future. The Attorney-General’s office has indicated that the fresh charges will address the core allegations of forgery and impersonation with the appropriate jurisdictional foundation. For now, the man who once presented himself as a presidential appointee charged with attracting foreign investment remains behind bars, while the full accounting of how his operation navigated the corridors of power continues to unfold.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Technology.
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