This is as The PUNCH gathered that a forged appointment letter bearing a falsified signature of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, was accepted at the Civil Service Headquarters without adequate verification, securing Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew an office at the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja and giving the controversial agency the appearance of government legitimacy for over a year.
Multiple sources in the Presidency and the civil service with first-hand knowledge of the scandal, who spoke to The PUNCH on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of ongoing proceedings, said the scandal would have been nipped in the bud save for bureaucratic safeguards that failed at multiple points in the Budget Office, the House of Representatives, and the Civil Service Headquarters.
The sources argued that the failure to properly scrutinise the appointment letter cascaded into the controversial Presidential Council ensnaring diplomatic missions, government ministries, the National Assembly and private individuals.
The PUNCH gathered that the N1.3bn controversial allocation was approved without Adeyemi or any official of the council appearing before the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service to defend the budget.
A National Assembly source told one of our correspondents Sunday that the entry was made through a backdoor arrangement.
“It was not brought in as a stand-alone item. It was done collectively with others that came in directly from the Presidency. So there was no defence or oversight.
“But I understand the Senate leadership will address the controversy on Tuesday to douse the growing tension and alleged complicity by any of its presiding officers,” the official said.
Meanwhile, sources in the Presidency and civil service provided a detailed account of how the fraud circumvented the bureaucratic safety checks through the undetected forgery.
“The mistake came from several areas, the House of Representatives, the Head of Service, the Budget Office. Most of them did not do due diligence. But you see where you can’t readily blame all of them is what we call grundnorm. There is a foundation. The appointment letter was fake. It was invalid.
“In government, the way it runs is that it is the President, not the Chief of Staff, who appoints. The letter of appointment is then issued by the SGF,” a Presidency source told one of our correspondents.
Explaining the constitutional process which Adeyemi’s allegedly forged letter violated, the source argued, “Everyone who has ever been appointed by this President passed through a specific process. If your parastatal is directly under the Presidency, the SGF makes a memo to the President and the President approves the memo.
“The SGF then issues you a letter of appointment. For those in ministries, he minutes it to the relevant minister, who minutes it to the Permanent Secretary, who then gives it to the appointee. With that letter, you can enter the government payroll.
“The Chief of Staff has never appointed anyone at that level. All DGs and Permanent Secretaries, their appointments are from the President.”
A highly placed civil servant who claimed to have reviewed the document after Adeyemi’s arrest explained that he (Adeyemi) exploited the bureaucratic blind spot.
“Where Adeniyi scammed everyone was that he forged a letter with the signature of the Chief of Staff, which was not even his signature because it was forged. It was not Gbajabiamila’s signature. The Chief of Staff cannot make such an appointment.
“Adeniyi took that fake letter, falsely signed by Gbajabiamila, to the civil service headquarters and said ‘please refer to my appointment letter attached.’ He arranged his terms of reference where he stated that he needed an office.
“The problem is, the President’s letter to the SGF or minister is not usually attached to such documentation, you are just expected to attach the appointment letter. But they were supposed to know that the Chief of Staff doesn’t appoint anyone. That was the loophole,” the official revealed.
The source further explained that said when Adeyemi was allocated an office space at the Federal Secretariat, every subsequent element of the alleged fraud became self-sustaining.
“Once you have an office there, it confers a very high level of legitimacy on you. You can meet big guests there. He had a letterhead and even a website. Once he established that office at the Federal Secretariat, every other thing followed. Nobody tried to do the needful anymore until someone raised the alarm,” said the official.
The official also confirmed that the office was locked up following Adeyemi’s initial arrest and reallocated to another official. However, he continued to operate away from the secretariat.
“The man was still running the scam after he left the secretariat, but he doesn’t use that place anymore,” the source said.
A second Presidency source said the fraud was first detected by officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, who noticed that the fictitious council was encroaching on their statutory mandate.
“The issue first came up from the NIPC in October last year. It started like inter-agency rivalry. That was how they saw it at the time because this fake agency was now overlapping into the mandate of the NIPC. The following day, it was taken to the Chief of Staff, who said he doesn’t know the person, and then he was the one who alerted the DSS.
“At one of the meetings about this issue, the Chief of Staff swore that he has never met the man and doesn’t even know him. And that his conscience is clear. The Chief of Staff didn’t take it lightly. He followed up until Adeniyi was arraigned in court and put on bail,” the insider said.
The source acknowledged that the prosecution lost momentum after the initial arrest, saying, “You know, when no one follows the case bumper to bumper, it can become very slow at the police. It was since October last year and when it resurfaced in June, I was surprised, because I believed it had been dealt with.
The official further revealed that several civil servants had independently identified the operation as fraudulent, stating, “Many civil servants already flagged it as a scam and it was their report that was used to alert the authorities. Some even thought that the case would unravel itself.”
A third source explained how Adeyemi may have secured a budget allocation for the council despite no formal budget defence.
According to the official, “The National Assembly, the turnover of members is quite high. Many of the people who are knowledgeable about some of these things may be gone. So a new person responsible for that committee on treaties may not really know what is happening. No one is blaming all the people there. But there needed to be due diligence which wasn’t done.
“He probably knows someone in the National Assembly and told them ‘please allocate something to us too.’ So it appeared like a government organisation that had a letterhead, an office and other things.
“All of these things, especially the fake appointment letter, conferred legitimacy on him. The whole problem stemmed from that oversight. People have been asking how he found his way into the budget.”
The source added that Adeyemi’s bail conditions had since been violated.
“The police is supposed to pick him up again. He ran foul of his bail conditions. He was actually arraigned in court. There is a big document on him from the police,” said the official.
Meanwhile, the N1.3bn budget allocation to the PFIPC has drawn reactions from civil society organisations and opposition parties, some of whom demanded that the President’s Chief of Staff steps down.
SERAP, HEDA demand disclosure
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, in a Freedom of Information request dated July 4, 2026, signed by Deputy Director Kolawole Oluwadare, asked Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas to release certified copies of all documents concerning the consideration and approval of the N1,302,978,784 allocation in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
SERAP also requested records identifying members of the National Assembly committees that considered the allocation, the names and official designations of all public officers who appeared before the committees to defend the provision, and clarification on whether the allocation was in the executive’s original bill or inserted during the legislative process.
“Nigerians have a right to know whether public funds were appropriated for an entity that was not lawfully established and, if so, how this occurred. Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law,” the organisation stated.
It warned that it would institute legal proceedings if the information was not released within seven days.
The Human and Environmental Development Agenda similarly called for a full public inquiry, with its chairman, Olanrewaju Suraju, stating: “If the Presidency maintains that the PFIPC does not exist, Nigerians deserve to know how an allocation for the council found its way into the 2026 Appropriation Act. The public has a right to know who proposed the allocation, the government institutions that processed and approved it, and whether any public funds have been released or committed.”
‘You have become the scandal itself,’ Atiku knocks Tinubu
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, through his SSA on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, intensified criticism of the Tinubu government, describing the PFIPC controversy as symptomatic of a recurring governance pattern.
Atiku said, “There is an old African saying that when a man’s roof leaks every rainy season, neighbours stop blaming the clouds and begin to question the strength of the house itself. Nigeria has sadly arrived at that point.
“The issue is no longer one scandal or another. The issue is the pattern. And when scandals become a pattern of governance, the inevitable conclusion is this: you are no longer managing scandals; you have become the scandal itself.”
He said the controversy offered President Tinubu an opportunity to demonstrate transparency by ordering an independent investigation.
“The countdown has already begun. Nigerians expect answers, not evasions. The presidency still has five days left to tell Nigerians who created this phantom organisation, who authorised its activities, and who must be held responsible. Silence cannot become the official response to a scandal of this magnitude,” he said.
PDP faction, CDHR demand probes
For its part, the Tanimu Turaki-led Peoples Democratic Party faction described the scandal as confirmation of what it called reckless governance.
It said, “If the Presidency’s account is correct that Prince Matthew is an impostor, then it means the Federal Government is so porous and vulnerable, an admission that the country has been brazenly defrauded because institutional gatekeepers entrusted with protecting our collective patrimony are either grossly incompetent or thoroughly distracted from the responsibilities of governance.”
The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights called on Gbajabiamila to voluntarily step aside pending independent investigation, with National President Yinka Folarin and National Secretary Idris Afees jointly signing the statement.
“The allegations on both sides are grave. While the Federal Government alleges forgery, impersonation, fraudulent operation of bank accounts and misrepresentation, the defendant has levelled equally weighty allegations of bribery and abuse of office against one of the country’s highest-ranking public officials. If either set of allegations is proven, it represents a serious assault on the integrity of public institutions,” the statement said.
Kwankwasiyya demands answers on budget
The Kwankwasiyya Movement, through spokesperson Dr Habibu Sale Mohammed, said the matter had gone beyond one individual.
It argued “This is no longer about one man. It has become a question of public accountability. If the council never existed, how did it find its way into the national budget? Who proposed and approved the allocation? Which government offices processed the documentation? Was any public money released or committed? If official documents were allegedly forged, how were they used for such a long period without detection?”
The Deputy Spokesman of the House of Representatives, Philip Agbese, urged Nigerians to allow the courts determine the controversy.
Agbese said, “The issue is being handled legally and I think we should all be patient. Nigerians will get to know in detail what transpired, and anything short of that at this material time will not help us.”
Senior lawyers dismiss calls to charge Gbajabiamila
Senior lawyers who spoke to The PUNCH on Sunday dismissed calls for Gbajabiamila to be charged alongside Adeyemi, saying such calls were based on sentiment rather than established facts and proper criminal procedure.
Bankole Akomolafe, SAN, founding partner at Bank-Akomolafe, SAN & Co said, “The issue of joining a person in a criminal matter, in the instant case, is not done on sentiments or emotions. Somebody is claiming that the Chief of Staff is aware of fraud.
“I do not believe that such an amount would have been transmitted by cash, that on its own would be a crime.
“So I want to assume that a transfer was made, electronic transfer. He should be able to publish the statement of account. It is not something that should be difficult to prove.”
He added, “How are we sure that the allegation is not a vendetta to say ‘I will make sure I rubbish you?’ People can allege anything. Let us see something concrete before we come to that suggestion that the person should be charged. Mere allegations are not enough.”
Another senior lawyer, Sampson Erugo, questioned why only Adeyemi had been formally charged, arguing that many others who facilitated the scheme should also be probed.
Erugo argued, “I wonder why the hurry in the trial of one person in this scandal. For there to be a budget, there is an office for the agency, and so many issues, meaning that so many people are involved. They have an office at the National Secretariat, they have accounts with the CBN. Why should they rush to charge one man? A lot of people should answer for their roles in the scam.”
Adeyemi is due to appear before the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 27, 2026, alongside two accomplices identified only as Femi and Anu who remain at large.
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