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History always keeps a date with every leader. For the greater part of his political career, and in the early months of the 2023 presidential campaign, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as candidate of the All Progressives Congress(APC), shaped a public image of himself as a master strategist, a consensual leader who could produce something for everyone without cost to anyone. He created expectations that only a consummate administrator could have satisfied. But power reveals more than it can hide. The veils are now off, revealing the true nature of man. It’s all a fake persona, a deception. To say this is not to suggest, as some observers have said, that Tinubu is simply ill-suited to be President of Nigeria.
Three years have since come full circle since he assumed office in most controversial circumstances. A blanket of suspicion continues to dog every step he makes and almost every policy decision he has taken. Clearly, under close scrutiny, the scope of the task appears far larger than he could cope. That’s why historians say that no one can successfully lead who does not first acquire power, and no leader can be great who does not know how to use power for greater purposes. The trouble is that the combination of the two skills is rare, especially for an ambitious, cynical politician with the temperament and behaviour adept at amassing power and not using it for the great purposes of the people and his country.
From what we have seen so far under his watch, it’s fair to say that President Tinubu does not possess the essential tools for tracking the long-standing bad habits of his key appointees. The point is that Mr. President seems irredeemably incapable of becoming a consummate administrator that he claims to be. He never really tried because his priorities are elsewhere- the desperation to win re-election regardless of public opinion about how his first-term in office has ruined the country. The skills, commitment and resources he needs to shape his presidency and the bureaucracy of government to ensure that the right things are done are channeled, instead, into an obsession of a second term. He forgets that morale, obedience and initiative are all essential qualities that good leadership can bring into play.
Without stretching matters too far, I am talking about what everyone else is talking about now – the controversy swirling around the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila – who is embroiled in a scandal of uncommon, criminal nature if proven. Perhaps no news headline in Nigeria today commands the attention, and indeed, the international community, as the scandal called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council(PFIPC) involving the CoS and one fellow called Prince Adeyemi Adeniyi Matthew. For over one year, Adeyemi presided over the Presidential Council as Director General, during which he held high-level meetings and took photographs with diplomatic officials.
I doubt if many Nigerians knew about this agency until recently when the presidency denied its existent, and described Adeyemi as a “con artist”, and the agency “fake”. The man at the centre of the storm has blown the lid off the whole matter, raising questions, weighty allegations, against the Chief of Staff to the President. Meanwhile, the presidency says it has filed charges in court against Adeyemi. Adeyemi has fired back, saying he would not be “intimidated or discredited” without response because, in his words, “you cannot beat a child and expect him or not to cry”.
Expect more exposé in the coming weeks. It has already started. According to Adeyemi, the major issue behind the disagreement between himself and Gbajabiamila is that the Cos allegedly requested 48 percent of the take-off grant(N27.3bn) from the agency, which he rejected after the CoS reportedly collected N400 million by proxy, with a balance of N200m remaining for him to secure the appointment as boss of the organisation. Many questions that arise include: how did a “fake” government agency get N1.3bn allocation in the 2026 budget if in deed, it was non-existent? Official records show that the ‘fictitious’ agency not only acquired hundreds of civil servants as staff and office space to operate.
Every scrap removed from the controversy leadsmen to more disturbing questions, asking for answers. As Adeyemi said at a press conference, “this is not an emotional question, it’s a procedural one”. I agree. The national budget does not emerge in isolation, does it? It passes through multiple layers of bureaucratic drafting, executive coordination, ministerial inputs, budget office review, and perhaps finally, legislative scrutiny by both chambers of the National Assembly, where Gbajabiamila served for two decades and rose from a minority to majority leader, and Speaker, House of Representatives for four years before his present position, one of the most notable positions a president can make.
He’s the gatekeeper to the presidency and every staff in the presidential Villa reports to him. You can now see why presidential aide, Bayo Onaguga’s damage control attempt to disown Adeyemi can be assessed for what it is.That’s the commanding height Gbajabiamila has reached in Tinubu’s government. But more questions remain unanswered: how did President Tinubu append his signature to a budget that includes a ‘fake agency’? Was he blindfolded to do that, or was he conned by one of his top aides? How could a ‘fake agency’ disowned by the presidency have secured high-level banking facilities and administrative approvals without the involvement of top government officials?
In other words, how could a fictitious agency have domiciliary account in dollars and pounds, and a Treasury Single Account(TSA) with the Central Bank of Nigeria? Did these accounts escape the scrutiny of the CBN Governor, Deputy Governors and all the Directors? The weight of evidence seems not to favour the presidency’s position, even though the court has the final say. However, official documents obtained by The Punch newspaper appear to cast doubts on government’s claim that the Presidential Council does not exist.
According to The Punch, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation received, acknowledged and acted on letters submitted in the Council’s name months before the presidency publicly disowned it.
Information from the SGF office also shows that it processed and forwarded the request by Adeyemi seeking office accommodation from the federal government from recovered properties by the anti graft agency, EFCC. One of the letters was dated November 26,2024, and was signed by the Permanent Secretary(General Services office), Mr. Nnamdi Maurice Mbaeri, on behalf of the SGF, George Akume.
Also, Registry stamps showed that the letter was duly received by the SGF’s office. Adeyemi was also cleared by the SGF’s office to attend the Canada-Africa Fintech Summit in August last year. There’s also correspondence between the National Assembly and the agency. Question: why is the leadership of NASS keeping quiet? Is it trying to shield anyone?
How much does the president know about this matter that may damage whatever that is left of his government’s reputation? If Nigeria is practicing true democracy, Gbajabiamila would have been fired since to allow an Independent Investigation into the matter. President Tinubu should take a cue from America. In April 1973, Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Halderman was forced to resign for his wrongdoing over the Watergate scandal. Will the president listen to public calls and ask his CoS to step aside? Some say, very unlikely. Gbajabiamila may cause Tinubu’s downfall the same way Halderman did to Nixon. Failure to sack Gbajabiamila may imply the President is complicit in the
scandal.
Let’s not forget that this is not the first time Gbajabiamila has been involved in scandals. The most notable was during his time as lawmaker when it was revealed that the Georgia Bar Association suspended him from practising law for 36 months. He admitted to accepting a $25,000 personal injury settlement on behalf of a client in 2003, and failing to disclose the funds, and withdrawing the money for his own personal use before leaving the United States. In 2021, Sahara Reporters published allegations that he and other legislative leaders accepted multi-million dollar bribes to ensure the swift passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill. In March 2024, reports surfaced linking him to claims of influences-peddling and alleged enrichment by trading “juicy” ministerial appointments during cabinet formations. All of this didn’t stop the president from making him his Chief of Staff. Is this a measure of trust or a case of birds of a feather? It’s time for President Tinubu to prove critics wrong that the grand corruption unravelling almost every day under his watch isn’t enough reason for him to resign. Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress(NDC) Mr. Peter Obi may have been vindicated when he recently said that Tinubu has failed the test of leadership, and therefore, should resign.
The latest report from the International Monetary Fund(IMF) that the N8.83trn in expenditure undertaken in 2025 did not reflect in the budget is a serious indictment on the Tinubu administration. The amount represents 2 percent of the GDP. The allegation by IMF is criminal in nature. However, the government said the expenditure followed due process in the Constitution and laws enacted by the legislature. Which legislature? The rubber-stamp National Assembly? This is one of the lowest level in Tinubu’s troubled presidency.
