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Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, has said that Matthew Adeniyi, who reportedly impersonated the head of a non-existent “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council”, is deliberately exploiting how Nigerians readily believe corruption allegations to shield himself from accountability and to implicate high-profile officials, including the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila.
He stated this via a post on his verified Facebook page on Friday, saying, “Matthew Adeniyi understands Nigerian public psychology, and he is exploiting it expertly to shield himself. He is an irredeemable con artist who is attempting to drag the name of the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, into his criminal enterprise. The Chief of Staff is simply his last straw.”
Ajayi said Adeniyi’s tactic is to create a smokescreen of sensational corruption claims that divert public attention from the facts and from the internal failures that allowed the alleged scheme to proceed. “In Nigeria, the easiest and most believable allegation anyone can throw at a public officer is corruption. Once that accusation is thrown into the mix, the water is polluted, the lines are blurred, and everyone is kept busy arguing over distractions rather than the real issues,” he added.
While acknowledging systemic weaknesses that enabled the fraud, Ajayi emphasised the important role of oversight institutions in detecting the anomaly. He pointed to officials at the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who he said identified inconsistencies and lodged complaints with relevant authorities. “Contrary to the anything-goes narrative being promoted, it was the system itself that raised the red flag and dealt with it administratively,” Ajayi wrote.
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Ajayi called on security agencies to investigate internal collaborators who may have facilitated Adeniyi’s alleged scheme. “What is not in doubt is that internal collaborators enabled Adeniyi to get this far. That is precisely what investigators from the DSS, the Police and the EFCC must now unravel. The criminal network within the affected institutions must be dismantled, and everyone found to have played a role should be arrested and prosecuted,” he said.
Ajayi’s post comes amid heightened public debate and social media commentary linking the case to senior government officials. He framed Adeniyi’s efforts as a deliberate strategy to weaponise public suspicion of corruption in order to misdirect scrutiny and sow confusion.
The Presidency said officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) first raised concerns after spotting an anomaly, which prompted the Office of the Chief of Staff to alert security agencies. The allegations then widened into claims that Adeniyi used forged documents, paraded himself as a government appointee and sought official support from agencies and diplomats.
The matter became more heated after Adeniyi reportedly claimed there was pressure linked to the Chief of Staff, while the Presidency insisted the council was fictitious and that Adeniyi was facing charges of forgery, impersonation and obtaining by false pretences. The police have already filed an eight-count charge, and the case is scheduled for a hearing on July 27.
