By Ambrose Ukanna
There are moments when a nation must pause, not because every allegation deserves equal dignity, but because some allegations, if left unanswered, can poison public perception, undermine institutions, and hand dangerous advantage to fraudsters, who understand the psychology of scandal better than the average citizen understands the discipline of evidence.
The controversy involving Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew and the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), is one such moment.
At first glance, the story has all the ingredients that excite public suspicion: the Presidency, a Chief of Staff, a purported federal agency, alleged budgetary provisions, claims of Central Bank accounts, accusations of a ₦600 million appointment transaction, and a supposed demand for 48 per cent of a ₦27.39 billion take-off grant.
It is the kind of story that travels quickly because it feeds an already cynical public mood. In today’s Nigeria, any allegation against a powerful public official is immediately believed by many people before the first document is examined. That is the tragic state of public trust.
But public distrust, however understandable, is not evidence. Anger is not proof. Suspicion is not fact. And no responsible society can allow the reputation of a senior public officer to be destroyed by a man whose own history raises disturbing questions of impersonation, institutional misrepresentation, and serial fabrication. In short, a criminal and fraudster by all standards.
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At the centre of this matter is Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, the. Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His alleged crime, when stripped of noise and theatrics, is that he disowned an entity that the federal government itself says does not exist. That entity is the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
There, however, a few unasnwered questions. But the most important question in this entire saga is also the simplest: Where is Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew’s appointment letter? That question alone can collapse the entire theatre.
In Nigeria, as it is in other organised climes, appointments are not made by rumour. They are not made by self-designed letterheads. They are not made by social media graphics, private introductions, reception stamps, WhatsApp messages, conference flyers, or dramatic press conferences.
A person appointed to head a federal agency, commission, council or presidential body must have a formal instrument of appointment. Such appointment must be traceable to an authorised approving authority and routed through proper administrative channels.
If Prince Adeyemi was truly appointed to head PFIPC, he should not need to abuse the Chief of Staff. He should not need emotional blackmail. He should not need insinuations, threats, theatrics or media stunts. He should simply produce the documents.
These include the appointment letter. The establishing instrument. The official approval. The gazette, if any. The executive order, if any.
The Federal Executive Council approval, if any. The enabling law, if any. Until he produces those documents, his claim remains hollow.
This is why the defence of Femi Gbajabiamila is not merely political; it is procedural, institutional and evidentiary. The Chief of Staff is not obliged to prove that a ghost does not exist. The man claiming to head the ghost agency must prove that the agency exists. And so far, from the materials available, he has not done so.
What exists instead is a damning official clarification from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. The SGF document addressed to the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council states plainly that PFIPC “is not a recognised body of the Federal Government of Nigeria,” has “no legal or administrative backing,” was not established by any instrument of the federal government, and that its operations are “unauthorised and fraudulent.”
That is not gossip. That is not an anonymous rebuttal. That is a direct institutional disclaimer from the administrative centre of government. Once that letter exists, the debate changes completely.
Before the letter, one may have said: “Adeyemi says the body exists; the Presidency says it does not.” After the letter, the question becomes: why is Adeyemi still parading himself around a body officially described as unauthorised and fraudulent? That question is devastating.
It is even more devastating when placed beside the fact that the Chief of Staff reportedly had him arrested last year after learning that he was allegedly impersonating a non-existent office. If this is true, then the ongoing media campaign looks less like courageous whistleblowing and more like retaliatory warfare by a man whose scheme had been interrupted. That is the real context.
Adeyemi is not an innocent citizen, who suddenly stumbled upon corruption and decided to speak truth to power. From the available materials, he appears to be a man whose supposed authority had already been challenged by the Presidency, whose activities had already attracted law-enforcement attention, and whose current allegations against the Chief of Staff emerged after official action had been taken against him. That sequence matters.
A man accused of impersonation has now turned around to accuse the official whose office exposed or resisted him. That alone should make every serious observer cautious.
The public should ask: is this whistleblowing, or is this revenge? Is this public interest, or is this reputational blackmail? Is this a fight for transparency, or a desperate attempt by an exposed impostor to drag others into the mud?
The more one examines the pattern, the more troubling it becomes.
Adeyemi’s history did not begin with PFIPC. The 2017 World Youth Organisation controversy is highly relevant because it reveals a familiar method: grand titles, international-sounding institutions, claims of global recognition, use of prestigious symbolism, media amplification, and later questions about legitimacy.
