Senate to Probe N1.3bn Ghost Agency Budget
The Nigerian Senate returns from recess on Tuesday to confront an uncomfortable question that has exposed weaknesses across the machinery of government: how did a body the Presidency insists never existed secure N1,302,978,784 in the 2026 Appropriation Act, pass through the Budget Office and the National Assembly, and operate from an office inside the Federal Secretariat in Abuja for more than a year before anyone raised an alarm.
At the centre of the storm is Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who presented himself as Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an outfit sometimes styled in documents as the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. The Presidency maintains that no such federal agency exists. According to a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, Adeyemi forged an appointment letter bearing the name and signature of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and used it to manufacture the appearance of legitimacy.
Accounts attributed to Presidency and civil service sources, widely reported in the Nigerian press, describe a chain of failures rather than a single lapse. The forged letter, they say, was accepted at the Civil Service Headquarters without proper verification, an oversight that then cascaded through the Budget Office and the House of Representatives.
The reported explanation turns on constitutional process. Appointments of that rank flow from the President, with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation issuing the formal letter, not the Chief of Staff. One Presidency source, quoted in press reports, put it plainly: “The Chief of Staff has never appointed anyone at that level.” Another official noted that gatekeepers “were supposed to know that the Chief of Staff doesn’t appoint anyone,” describing that gap as the loophole Adeyemi exploited.
Once an office was allocated inside the Federal Secretariat, the reported account continues, every subsequent step became self sustaining. With a letterhead, a website and a physical address, the operation could host what appeared to be legitimate official engagements. Public records and photographs cited in various reports place Adeyemi in meetings with officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Raw Materials Research and Development Council and a Chinese investment delegation, among others.
The allocation sits under the Presidency in the signed 2026 budget, carried on pages 50 and 51 of the 2,790 page document under code 0111062001. Budget breakdowns reported by Vanguard and other outlets show roughly N802.98m earmarked for personnel, N200m for overhead and N300m for capital. More granular line items reported by Daily Trust include salary provisions, allowances and social contributions, and N182.5m listed for logistics tied to hosting a purported World Investment Summit 2026.
The Journal reported that the allocation was approved without Adeyemi or any council official appearing before the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service to defend it. A National Assembly source cited by the newspaper described the entry as a backdoor arrangement bundled with items that “came in directly from the Presidency,” meaning “there was no defence or oversight.”
The controversy is not new. The Chief of Staff petitioned the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force on October 17, 2025, after concerns first surfaced from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission that a parallel body was encroaching on its mandate. Adeyemi was arrested on October 27, 2025, and an eight count charge covering conspiracy, forgery, impersonation and operating a fictitious agency was filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja on November 27, 2025, against him and two accomplices identified only as Femi and Anu, who remain at large. Investigators reportedly linked 34 bank accounts to him, nine opened in the names of fictitious agencies, and alleged that he deceived the Office of the Accountant General to open a Central Bank account into which, the police say, no government funds were paid.
Adeyemi has rejected the accusations. He has insisted his appointment was genuine, questioned how a supposedly non existent agency entered the Appropriation Act, and vowed, in a public statement, that he would “rather die as a man than to live as a coward.” The matter returns to court on July 27, 2026.
This is not the first time his name has surfaced in such circumstances. The Presidency recalled that in November 2016 he paraded himself as President General of a World Youth Organisation claiming United Nations affiliation, a claim the UN publicly denied.
Civil society groups and opposition figures have seized on the gaps the Presidency’s rebuttal left unaddressed. The Socio Economic Rights and Accountability Project, in a Freedom of Information request dated July 4, 2026, signed by its Deputy Director Kolawole Oluwadare, asked Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas to release all documents on the approval, warning that it would go to court within seven days if refused. The organisation argued that “Nigerians have a right to know whether public funds were appropriated for an entity that was not lawfully established.”
The Human and Environmental Development Agenda, led by Olanrewaju Suraju, demanded a full public inquiry into who proposed and processed the allocation. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, through his aide Phrank Shaibu, framed the episode as a pattern, declaring that the government was “no longer managing scandals” but had “become the scandal itself.” The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights called on Gbajabiamila to step aside pending an independent probe, while the Kwankwasiyya Movement, through Dr Habibu Sale Mohammed, insisted the matter had “become a question of public accountability.”
Not everyone agrees on where blame should fall. Senior lawyers cited in press reports cautioned against charging the Chief of Staff on the strength of allegations alone. Bankole Akomolafe, SAN, argued that joining anyone to a criminal matter cannot rest “on sentiments or emotions,” while Sampson Erugo questioned why prosecutors moved swiftly against one man when an office, a budget line and multiple accounts implied wider involvement. The Deputy Spokesman of the House of Representatives, Philip Agbese, urged patience, saying the issue “is being handled legally.”
The signed 2026 budget remains the largest in Nigeria’s history at N68.32tn, and questions about how items enter it are not new to the National Assembly, which has weathered budget padding controversies before, most notably the disputed 2016 estimates. For the Senate leadership, Tuesday’s session is as much about institutional credibility as about one contested line item. The reported aim is to douse tension and address suggestions of complicity by presiding officers. Whether lawmakers order a formal inquiry, disclose the paper trail sought by SERAP, or defer to the courts will shape how far a scandal that began as an inter agency turf dispute travels up the chain of accountability.