The Nigeria Police Force has arraigned Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, the man who accused President Bola Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, of receiving a ₦400million bribe, on allegations of forgery, impersonation and operating a non-existent presidential agency.
Adeyemi, who presented himself as the Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), was charged before a Federal High Court in Abuja after investigators alleged that he forged documents and falsely claimed presidential backing for an organisation the Presidency insists was never established.
The development comes days after Adeyemi publicly accused Gbajabiamila of collecting ₦400million through intermediaries and allegedly demanding an additional ₦200million to facilitate his appointment as head of the purported council. He further claimed that the Chief of Staff sought a substantial percentage of the agency’s proposed ₦27.4billion take-off allocation, allegations that triggered widespread political controversy and calls for an independent probe.
However, the Presidency had dismissed the claims, maintaining that no such body as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council exists within the structure of the Federal Government and that any appointment documents linked to the organisation were fraudulent.
Police prosecutors accused Adeyemi of forging official presidential documents, unlawfully parading himself as a government appointee and misleading members of the public into believing that the PFIPC was a recognised federal institution operating under President Tinubu’s administration.
The charges have added a dramatic twist to the controversy that previously drew the intervention of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who urged President Bola Tinubu to suspend and investigate Gbajabiamila over the bribery allegations, arguing that the matter raised serious questions about transparency and the integrity of government processes.
Despite the criminal charges against Adeyemi, opposition figures and civil society groups have maintained that the bribery allegations themselves deserve independent scrutiny, insisting that the legal action against the accuser should not automatically foreclose investigations into the claims he made against the President’s Chief of Staff.
The case is expected to further intensify political debate over accountability, the authenticity of presidential appointments and the circumstances surrounding the controversial budgetary provisions earlier linked to the purported agency.