PFIPC Forgery Case: Absent Adeyemi Leaves Court In Limbo
The forgery trial of Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, the self styled Director General of a council the Presidency insists never existed, stalled again on Tuesday after the defendant failed to appear at the Federal High Court in Abuja, leaving prosecutors weighing an application for a bench warrant.
Adeyemi was billed to take his plea before Justice Mohammed Umar on an eight count charge of forgery, fraud and impersonation marked FHC/ABJ/CR/562/2025. Although the matter appeared as item number 12 on the day’s cause list, the accused was nowhere to be seen, and indications emerged that the Inspector General of Police, who is prosecuting, may seek a warrant for his arrest wherever he is found.
It was not the first delay. When the case came up on June 16, Adeyemi was reported indisposed and the judge adjourned proceedings. The charge, filed on November 27, 2025 by police prosecutor Wisdom Madaki, names him alongside two other defendants.
At the centre of the matter is the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, an entity the Presidency has repeatedly branded fictitious. In statements traced to the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the government described Adeyemi as an impostor and dismissed both the PFIPC and a linked Presidential Economic Advisory Council as non existent.
According to police findings, Adeyemi allegedly forged appointment letters and official documents bearing falsified signatures, reference numbers, seals and the Nigerian Coat of Arms to pass the council off as a genuine federal agency. Investigators said he operated from the second floor of the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase III, Abuja, and ran as many as 34 bank accounts, nine of them tied to bodies described as fictitious. He was first arrested on October 27, 2025 and held for 23 days before his release.
The scandal gained national traction after the disowned council surfaced with a N1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 Appropriation Act, raising fresh questions over how it entered the budget. The controversy first drew notice in October 2025, when the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission flagged another body appearing to operate at cross purposes with it, prompting the Chief of Staff’s office to petition the police and the Department of State Services.
Adeyemi has pushed back hard. In an interview with Channels Television, he denied hiding from investigators, insisting he stepped out of public view over threats to his life. “I’m ready to show my face. I’m not hiding. I’m only fearing for my life because I have it on good authority that my life is in danger,” he said, adding that there had been “several attempts” on his life.
He has also maintained that he paid N400 million through a proxy to the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, to secure the appointment, alleging that Gbajabiamila demanded 48 percent of a take off grant put at N27.4 billion. Gbajabiamila, who is listed among prosecution witnesses, has denied the claim. Adeyemi said those who lent him the money had since reported him to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
His caution, he said, was deepened by the death of a co suspect, Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola, in a hotel fire in Abuja. Adeyemi has demanded an independent, multi stakeholder panel drawing in the Nigerian Bar Association, civil society, the ICPC and the EFCC, and in an open letter to President Bola Tinubu offered to produce documentary evidence once such a body is constituted.
Other listed witnesses include Paul Emmanuel, Jeremiah Imoukhede, Ituah Sylvester, two officials of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, and a deputy superintendent of police.