‘PHANTOM’ N1.3BN COUNCIL: My life is under threat, Gbajabiamila’s accuser cries out from hiding
Adeniyi Adeyemi, the man at the center of the brewing “phantom agency” scandal rocking the Presidency, has raised the alarm over an alleged threat to his life, claiming he has gone underground to escape assassination.
Adeyemi, who is being accused of forging government documents and illegally parading himself as the Director-General of the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), broke his silence following a Presidency statement labelling him a “con artist.”
Speaking from an undisclosed location on Thursday, Adeyemi fiercely denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the federal government’s legal onslaught against him is a desperate “defence mechanism” designed to shield powerful individuals and silence the truth.
“You know the government we have. They are just playing a defence mechanism to shut me up. My organisation was set up in 2024,” Adeyemi stated. “They are now after my life. I have gone into hiding. I’m underground. I don’t consider myself safe.”
The N600 million bribery allegation
The crisis escalated after the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, announced on June 11 that the PFIPC was a fictitious entity that did not exist under the Bola Tinubu administration.
READ ALSO: N1.3bn Budget Mystery: Questions linger as presidency clears Gbajabiamila of ‘phantom’ Council fraud
However, Adeyemi swiftly challenged the claim, calling on President Tinubu to set up an independent investigative panel to uncover the truth. He alleged that the sudden hostility from the Presidency arose only after he refused to surrender 48 percent of the agency’s take-off grant to top officials.
In a staggering revelation, Adeyemi further claimed that he paid a whopping N400 million bribe to secure the appointment, with an outstanding balance of N200 million still pending.
Official documents contradict ‘phantom agency’ claims
Despite the Presidency’s insistence that the council is entirely fake, investigations and leaked documents have raised serious questions about institutional complicity.
Budgetary Allocation: Budgetary checks revealed that the controversial council was actually allocated a sum of N1.3 billion in the 2026 budget, listed alongside the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).
Physical Presence: Adeyemi has reportedly been operating from a fully functional office located within the Federal Secretariat in Abuja.
Official Recruitment Waiver: A leaked letter from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, dated August 7, 2025, showed that the federal government had actually granted the PFIPC a waiver to recruit 300 staff members, despite an active embargo on general civil service recruitment.
The recruitment approval letter, signed by Mimi Abu (Director of Organisation Design and Development), authorized the council to hire 10 directors on Grade Level (GL) 17, 20 assistant directors on GL15, and 44 administrative officers across various senior cadres.
Presidency fires back, drags Adeyemi to court
Reacting to the development, the Presidency strongly absolved the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, of any involvement in the scandal.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, dismissed Adeyemi’s claims, describing him as a sophisticated fraudster who had been thoroughly investigated by security agencies.
According to Onanuga, the Nigeria Police Force has already slammed an eight-count charge against Adeyemi and two other defendants at the Federal High Court. The criminal case, which was filed on November 27, 2025, has been scheduled for a formal hearing on July 27, 2026.
Notably, the presidency’s official statement completely ignored the N600 million bribery allegations leveled against Gbajabiamila.
“Confession of Institutional Collapse” – Atiku
The burgeoning scandal has drawn fierce criticism from the opposition. Former Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has accused the Presidency of attempting a clumsy cover-up that has only generated more questions than answers.
Speaking via a statement issued on Thursday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku stated that the Presidency’s explanation demands far greater faith than the scandal itself.
“A government cannot claim to be exposing fraud while simultaneously struggling to explain how that same fraud found its way into the very heart of the Nigerian state. What the Presidency intended as damage control has become self-indictment,” Atiku said.
The opposition leader questioned how a single private citizen could single-handedly forge presidential documents, secure a physical office inside the Federal Secretariat, open government-linked bank accounts, and host foreign ambassadors without high-level insider help.
“The fictitious agency scandal is the storm. What Nigerians have witnessed is not merely the exposure of an alleged impostor; it is the exposure of institutions hollowed out by years of negligence, incompetence, and impunity,” Atiku concluded, demanding transparency over how N1.3 billion was smuggled into the 2026 budget for a supposedly non-existent agency.
