Atiku To Tinubu: Trace Every Approval In PFIPC Scandal
Pressure on the presidency over the disputed Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council mounted sharply on Friday as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar handed President Bola Tinubu a seven-day ultimatum to order what he called a transparent, comprehensive and independent investigation into the affair, warning that silence would be read as complicity.
The former vice president, who is now presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, delivered the demand in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu. Atiku argued that the matter had outgrown the question of one man’s alleged conduct and now cut to the credibility of Nigeria’s budgeting process, the integrity of the Federal Civil Service and the accountability of the presidency itself.
“The President must order a comprehensive, independent investigation immediately. Anything short of that will amount to complicity by silence,” he stated.
At the centre of the storm is Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who has for months presented himself as Director General of the PFIPC, an outfit he also links to a body he calls the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. The presidency has flatly rejected his claims. In a rebuttal issued through the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the government described Adeyemi as an impostor and “a con artist who appears to have built a web of false claims to deceive unsuspecting government officials and the public into playing by his scam book.”
According to the presidency, the police investigation traced an elaborate forgery scheme. Onanuga said officers found that Adeyemi “fraudulently opened a CBN account by misleading the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation,” using forged documents, though no government money was said to have entered the account. The government has stated that the Nigeria Police filed an eight-count charge against Adeyemi and two accomplices, said to be at large, before the Federal High Court in Abuja on November 27, 2025. The charges border on conspiracy, forgery, impersonation and obtaining by false pretence, and the matter is fixed for hearing on July 27, 2026.
The controversy traces back to October 2025, when the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, petitioned security agencies over what he described as fraudsters forging appointment letters from his office. Adeyemi was arrested on October 27, 2025, and later granted police bail. On June 11, 2026, Gbajabiamila issued a public disclaimer stating that no such council exists under the Tinubu administration and cautioning Nigerians against dealing with anyone claiming to represent it.
Adeyemi has pushed back forcefully. Appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, he insisted his appointment was genuine and said he was ready to prove it in court. “Definitely, sir. If I’m wrong, let the court of law do that, and if I’m right, let the court of law do that; do the right thing,” he said, declining to discuss operational details while the case is pending. He has alleged that his troubles stem from a fallout with Gbajabiamila, claiming the Chief of Staff demanded 48 per cent of a purported N27.4bn take-off grant, allegedly received N400m through a proxy, and sought a further N200m to facilitate the appointment. The presidency has firmly denied these allegations.
For Atiku, the presidency’s own explanation raises more questions than it settles. He pointed to reports that the disputed council surfaced in the 2026 Appropriation Act with a multi billion naira line, and that the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation allegedly approved the recruitment of more than 300 personnel into the agency.
“If the government wants Nigerians to believe that one man single-handedly created an office for himself, secured office space within a government facility, held meetings with foreign embassy delegations, paid courtesy visits to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, processed staff salaries through official channels, allegedly operated institutional accounts, and carried on all these activities without the knowledge, approval, negligence or collaboration of anyone within government; then that narrative raises even more troubling questions than it answers,” he said.
“At this point, the story looks less like a clean explanation and more like an attempt to isolate one man after an internal arrangement went sour. If Mr Adeniyi Adeyemi committed fraud, he must face the law. But the bigger question is this: what kind of government system allows such an elaborate operation to pass through budgetary, administrative, security and institutional channels without detection? Haba! Nigerians cannot be asked to swallow such a story whole.”
He insisted that the movement of a supposedly fictitious agency through structured public processes could not be waved away as clerical slips. “These developments cannot be dismissed as administrative oversights. Budget preparation is a structured process involving ministries, departments, agencies, the Budget Office, the National Assembly and ultimately presidential assent. Recruitment into the Federal Civil Service is also governed by manpower planning, establishment approvals, financial implications, grade-level classifications and institutional clearances. These things do not happen by accident,” he said.
“It stretches credibility beyond reasonable limits to suggest that an agency described as entirely fictitious could appear in official budget documents, reportedly obtain recruitment approval for hundreds of personnel, secure official space, interact with state institutions and foreign missions, and yet have no enablers within government.”
Atiku maintained that only an independent inquiry could settle the competing claims. “Whether his claims are true or false is not for the presidency to determine through press statements. That is precisely why Nigeria needs an independent investigation. Let the facts speak. Let every document be examined. Let every approval be traced. Let every official who acted, neglected a duty, or enabled this scandal be identified and held accountable,” he said.
His intervention lands amid a widening chorus. Public records of recent days show that the human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has argued that the presidency lacks the constitutional authority to exonerate anyone in the matter and has likewise called for an independent probe of both Gbajabiamila and Adeyemi. The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre and former Sports Minister Solomon Dalung have made similar demands, while the New Dependable Coalition has gone further to seek Gbajabiamila’s removal. Much of the disquiet has settled on one detail reported by several outlets, that the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and the PFIPC appear in the 2026 Appropriation Act under the presidency with an allocation of roughly N1.3bn covering personnel, overhead and capital spending, a discrepancy that has fuelled questions over whether the entry was an error or evidence that the body existed in some official form.
The episode has become an early test of the Tinubu administration’s transparency credentials at a politically sensitive moment. Atiku, who placed second in the 2023 presidential election and has since realigned with the ADC as part of a broader opposition coalition, is positioning himself for another run in 2027, and the PFIPC row hands the opposition a ready platform on governance and accountability. Whether the presidency responds within the seven days Atiku has set, or allows the courts to run their course from July 27, is likely to shape the next phase of a controversy that has already drawn in the civil service, the National Assembly’s budget process and the office of the Chief of Staff.
For now, the facts remain contested. The presidency insists the council never existed and that Adeyemi forged his way into public view. Adeyemi insists he was lawfully appointed and that documents will vindicate him. Between those two positions sits a budget line, a set of institutional approvals and a criminal trial that will test which account survives scrutiny.