The Presidency has called for the arrest and prosecution of individuals within government institutions who allegedly enabled Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew to operate a fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).
It asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Department of State Services (DSS), and Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to identify those involved.
In a statement on X, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, said investigators must dismantle the criminal network that allowed Adeniyi to get as far as he did.
"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," Ajayi said.
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The Presidency alleged that Adeniyi had exploited his access to forge presidential appointment letters, maintain 34 bank accounts in the names of fictitious government bodies.
It claimed he hosted foreign ambassadors and open a Central Bank account, all while presenting himself as Director-General of the non-existent PFIPC.
Ajayi accused Adeniyi of deliberately targeting Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila with corruption allegations to cloud the real issues.
"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 said.
"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 added.
The statement came amid growing public scrutiny of the scandal, fuelled by official documents showing that the Accountant General's office had redeployed staff to the PFIPC and that the agency appeared in the 2026 appropriation budget, developments the Presidency has not directly addressed.
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