PFIPC Scandal: Court Warrant Delivers Adeyemi Into Police Net
Weeks of evasion ended for Adeniyi Adeyemi on Tuesday when operatives of the police Intelligence Response Team tracked the self styled Director General of the disputed Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council to a hideout in Osun State, only hours after a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered his arrest. The swift sequence of events closed one chapter in a scandal that has drawn in the Presidency, questioned the integrity of the 2026 budget, and placed the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, at the centre of a fierce dispute over a body the Federal Government insists never existed.
The arrest followed a ruling by Justice Mohammed Umar, who granted an oral application by the prosecution after Adeyemi failed to appear for arraignment on an eight count charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/562/2025. Prosecution counsel, Wisdom Madaki, told the court that Tuesday marked the fifth scheduled hearing, and that earlier adjournments had come at the instance of the defendant. Defence counsel, Genesis Francis, argued that his client stayed away because he feared for his life and had written to President Tinubu over the alleged threats, insisting he wished to remain alive to defend himself. Justice Umar dismissed the explanation, remarking, “The court will help him be alive,” before ordering the bench warrant and adjourning the matter to September 30, 2026.
The order did not sit long on paper. The police confirmed the arrest through the office of the Force Public Relations Officer, with a terse statement issued to journalists. “We have just confirmed the arrest of Mr. Adeniyi Adeyemi by a team of the Intelligence Response Team in Osun State. Thank you,” the statement read. The spokesman for the Osun State Police Command, Abiodun Ojelabi, confirmed the operation but declined further detail. According to accounts of the operation, Adeyemi had been trailed for more than a week, first by the Department of State Services and later by an Intelligence Response Team unit led by CSP Moses Lohor, a former Commander of the Osun Anti Kidnapping Squad. He was said to have switched off his phones for about two days before he was located, then moved from Osun to Ibadan and onward to Abuja.
The charges themselves date back several months. The Nigeria Police Force filed the eight count case on November 27, 2025, accusing Adeyemi and two other suspects, identified only as Femi and Anu and said to be at large, of conspiracy, forgery and impersonation. Investigators alleged that the defendants produced a purported presidential appointment letter, State House letterheads, a conveyance approval for the establishment of the council, requests for the approval of staff accounts, applications for office space and letters seeking collaboration with a federal ministry. Count Two accuses Adeyemi of forging an appointment letter purportedly signed by the Chief of Staff, an offence cited under Section 1(2)(c) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act, while Count Five accuses him of falsely presenting himself as Director General, contrary to Section 179 of the Penal Code. If convicted on the forgery related counts, he faces up to 21 years imprisonment without the option of a fine, while the impersonation count carries a maximum of three years or a fine.
The council at the heart of the case is rendered in some official records as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, and in others, including the charge sheet, as the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council. Both share the acronym PFIPC. The Presidency has repeatedly stated that no such agency exists under any law, presidential instrument or executive approval.
Concerns over the body first surfaced in October 2025, when, according to the Presidency, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission raised the alarm over another organisation carrying out overlapping functions. The Office of the Chief of Staff petitioned the Inspector General of Police on October 17, 2025 over the circulation of forged appointment letters. Five days later, on October 22, Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola, whom Adeyemi has described as the intermediary in the affair, died in a fire at Kachi Hotel in Abuja. Adeyemi was first arrested at an office he occupied within the Federal Secretariat in Abuja on October 27, and searches at that office and his residence in Suleja were said to have recovered several documents and exhibits.
The scandal moved fully into public view on June 11, 2026, when the Presidency issued a disclaimer signed by Gbajabiamila describing Adeyemi as an impostor. In a detailed statement on July 1, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said police investigations established that the agency was fictitious, that Adeyemi forged his appointment letter, and that he operated 34 bank accounts, nine of them opened in the names of fictitious agencies. The statement also alleged that he falsely solicited a note verbale from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help himself and his staff obtain United States visas. On July 7, President Tinubu directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to investigate the matter and report within 30 days, with a mandate that extends to the forged documents, the diplomatic and visa facilitation, the bank accounts, the movement of funds and the possible involvement of public officials.
The most explosive claims have come from Adeyemi himself. In a press conference on June 25 and later on Channels Television’s Politics Today, he alleged that Gbajabiamila received N400 million through a proxy to facilitate his appointment, demanded a further N200 million, and sought 48 per cent of a purported N27.4 billion take off grant for the council, amounting to about N12.5 billion. “I borrowed this money. In fact, those that I borrowed this money from have reported to the EFCC. I borrowed this money to pay for this appointment,” he said, adding that he was yet to repay the debt. In a separate exchange with the activist Martins Otse, known as VeryDarkMan, he conceded that he had never met Gbajabiamila in person and could not confirm the identity of the person he spoke with by telephone.
Gbajabiamila has rejected the allegations in full. Through his counsel, Kemi Pinheiro, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, he described the claims as “malicious, reckless and entirely without factual foundation,” maintained that he had never had contact with Adeyemi, and threatened a N10 billion defamation suit, demanding a retraction and an apology in five national newspapers.
The dispute has also raised uncomfortable questions about the public purse. The PFIPC appeared in the 2026 Appropriation Act with an allocation exceeding N1.3 billion, a detail that has fuelled debate over how a body the Presidency calls fictitious found its way into the national budget. The National Assembly has denied allocating funds to the agency, while the Senate declined to open a separate inquiry pending the outcome of the ICPC probe.
Legal opinion on the way forward has been divided. The President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Afam Osigwe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, noted that the President’s directive could widen the inquiry beyond those already charged. “The law does not deal with speculation. As of today, he is the only person charged in court,” he said, adding that whether others named in the affair should be invited rested with investigators. Another Senior Advocate, Prof. Sam Erugo, argued that the police ordinarily ought to question anyone whose name featured in a criminal investigation, while acknowledging the practical difficulty. “The right thing should be for the police to invite Gbajabiamila and interrogate him,” he said, before adding that a serving Chief of Staff wielded influence that made such a step unlikely unless the President chose to intervene.
For now, the case returns to court on September 30, when Adeyemi is expected to finally take his plea. The parallel ICPC investigation, the threatened defamation action, and the unresolved question of the budget line ensure that a matter some Nigerians have taken to calling “Gbajagate” is far from settled.