Nigeria has charged a man accused of creating a fictitious government agency, appointing himself as its head and securing federal budget funding for the operation.
Adeniyi Adeyemi appeared before a court in Abuja on Wednesday on eight counts of forgery and impersonation. He pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody until his next court appearance on October 12.
Prosecutors allege Adeyemi had since 2024 presented himself as director-general of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, or PFIPC, an organisation the Nigerian presidency says it neither created nor authorised.
Despite that, the purported agency secured office space inside the federal secretariat, obtained a budget allocation worth about $1 million this year and attempted to open accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria, according to court filings.
Several government institutions also processed requests from the organisation in the belief that it was a legitimate federal agency.
The case has drawn widespread attention in Nigeria because of the scale of the alleged scheme and the apparent ease with which the purported agency moved through several layers of government bureaucracy.
Adeyemi, dressed in a white kaftan and baseball cap, smiled and spoke with his lawyers before the charges were read in court.
Prosecutors accuse him of forging an appointment letter supposedly issued by President Bola Tinubu and signed by Tinubu’s chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila.
They also allege that Adeyemi used documents carrying presidential letterheads to request office space, staff deployments and cooperation from government agencies.
Prosecutors have not accused any public officials of conspiring with him.
Adeyemi was arrested in Osun state after a judge issued a warrant following his failure to appear in court on five occasions.
He has denied wrongdoing in interviews with Nigerian media, insisting that the PFIPC was legitimate and saying he personally approached budget officials to have the organisation included in federal spending plans.
Gbajabiamila could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Adeyemi previously said at a meeting in Lagos on September 26 that the police, Department of State Services and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission had cleared him of wrongdoing.
The case has also raised questions about oversight within Nigeria’s public institutions, particularly how an organisation the presidency says did not officially exist was allegedly able to secure government office space, interact with state institutions and obtain a federal budget allocation.
