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Allegations of bribery-for-appointment against the Chief of Staff to the President, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, by one Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, is deserving of critical examination away from the current mob approach. Olatunde Alabi writes

By any fair reading of the materials now in circulation, the controversy around a certain Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew and the so-called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council is no longer merely a story about allegation and denial.

It is a test of institutional memory, public gullibility, media responsibility, and the disturbing ease with which a determined impostor can weaponise suspicion against public officials.

At the centre of the storm is the Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. His alleged offence? That he publicly disowned a body which, from the materials available, has no lawful basis, no clear establishing instrument, and no demonstrable appointment letter placing Adeyemi in charge of it.

That should have settled the matter. Instead, Adeyemi has attempted to turn his own exposure into a public prosecution of the man whose office reportedly moved against him.

The first question is brutally simple: where is his appointment letter?

In the Federal Government of Nigeria, appointments are not made by rumour, social media graphics, self-designed letterheads, or loud press conferences.

A person appointed to head a federal agency must have a formal instrument of appointment. Such a letter should ordinarily emanate through appropriate channels, particularly the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

If Prince Adeyemi truly headed a presidential council, he should not need theatrical accusations to prove it. He should simply produce the letter. He has not. That omission is fatal.

Even more damaging is the document from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation dated 21 October 2025, addressed to the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council.

The letter states that PFIPC “is not a recognised body of the Federal Government of Nigeria,” has “no legal or administrative backing,” was not established by any federal instrument, and that its operations are “unauthorised and fraudulent.”

That is not a casual media denial. It is an institutional repudiation. Once such a clarification exists, Adeyemi’s continued claim to legitimacy becomes profoundly suspicious.

His defenders may argue that he has documents showing correspondence, proposals, ministry receipt stamps, summit invitations, and government-facing engagements. But those do not establish legal authority.

A ministry receiving a letter does not make the sender a government appointee. A proposal submitted to a public office does not create an agency. A letterhead, stamp, or invitation does not become an executive instrument.

The same pattern appears in the World Investment Summit materials.

One document presents Adeyemi as Director-General/Convener-General of the World Investment Summit Group and makes ambitious claims about a 2026 summit, global leaders, international stock exchanges, and collaboration with government offices.

Another invitation to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs bears receipt stamps, but again, receipt of correspondence is not recognition, appointment, or endorsement.

This distinction is crucial. Adeyemi’s strategy appears to rely on blurring the line between access and authority. He presents contact with institutions as if it were official empowerment by those institutions. But serious governance does not work that way.

There is also the matter of his record. The 2017 World Youth Organisation controversy, the flyer showing him as “President General World Youth United Nations Organization,” and the use of United Nations imagery all raise legitimate questions about a long-running pattern of grand institutional self-presentation.

None of that alone proves the present allegations false, but it makes his credibility a central issue. A man, who makes extraordinary allegations must be prepared for extraordinary scrutiny.

And the allegations here are not small. Adeyemi claims he paid N400 million upfront, with N200 million outstanding, to secure an appointment. He further claims that the trouble began when he refused an alleged demand for 48 per cent of a N27.39 billion take-off grant.

These are grave claims. But where are the bank records? Where is the payment trail? Who received the money? Who witnessed the transaction? What account was used? Where are the messages, recordings, letters, or verifiable intermediaries?

Allegation is not evidence. Volume is not proof. Drama is not documentation.

Indeed, the fact that the Chief of Staff reportedly had him arrested last year for impersonating a non-existent office changes the entire moral balance of the story.

If Gbajabiamila’s office had already moved against him for impersonation, then Adeyemi’s current media campaign begins to look less like whistleblowing and more like retaliation. It suggests a man cornered by exposure now attempting to drag down the very official whose office challenged his activities.

That is why the language of blackmail enters the conversation. Not as a casual insult, but as an analytical possibility. The pattern is familiar: a disputed actor faces official repudiation, escalates publicly, throws out sensational allegations, demands investigations into everyone else, and seeks to convert his own credibility crisis into a scandal for his accusers.

Still, there is one uncomfortable issue that must not be ignored: how did references to this supposed body or its funding allegedly enter budgetary materials?

That question matters. If PFIPC or related funding appeared in official budget documents, then Adeyemi may not have acted alone.

It could point to collaborators, sympathisers, negligent officials, or high-level allies within government, who enabled the appearance of legitimacy around an otherwise unauthorised structure.

That possibility should be investigated thoroughly. But that question does not implicate the Chief of Staff. In fact, it may support his position.

If his office disowned the body and reportedly triggered action against Adeyemi, then the more logical inquiry is not why Gbajabiamila denied PFIPC, but who inside the system may have helped Adeyemi sustain the illusion before the denial became public.

That is the real investigation.

Who inserted any budget line? Who processed any file? Who received correspondence? Who allowed office claims? Who gave him access? Who failed to flag the impersonation earlier? These questions should be pursued, not to validate Adeyemi, but to expose the network that may have enabled him.

Gbajabiamila’s reputation should not be casually sacrificed on the altar of social media suspicion. He is not the one claiming to head an agency without producing an appointment letter.

He is not the one with a documented history of controversial and false institutional claims. He is not the one circulating sensational allegations without proof of payment.

On the available materials, his office appears to have done what responsible public institutions should do: disown an unauthorised body and warn the public.

The burden remains where it belongs: on Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew. Let him produce the appointment letter. Let him produce the establishing instrument. Let him produce the gazette or executive approval. Let him produce proof of payment. Let him produce evidence of the alleged demand.

Until then, what Nigerians are witnessing is not a proven corruption scandal against the Chief of Staff. It is the desperate counteroffensive of a man whose claimed authority appears to have collapsed under official scrutiny.

The Chief of Staff deserves a stout defence, not because public officials are above questioning, but because justice demands that accusation must be anchored on evidence.

Reputation is not a toy. Public trust is not a playground. And no serious country should allow a man with unresolved questions around impersonation to convert his own alleged fraud into a weapon against the Presidency.

The PFIPC affair should be investigated, yes. But the investigation should begin with the man who claims to have been appointed. And the first exhibit should be simple: Where is the appointment letter?

•Alabi wrote from Abuja