A presidential aide, Temitope Ajayi, has accused Prince Adeniyi Mathew Adeyemi of exploiting public concerns about corruption to divert attention from the criminal allegations against him, insisting that attempts to implicate the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, were aimed at shielding himself from accountability.
Ajayi, who is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said Adeyemi was taking advantage of public perceptions about corruption to muddy the waters surrounding the allegations against him.
He described Adeyemi as an “irredeemable con artist” and alleged that he was attempting to drag Gbajabiamila into his purported fraudulent activities as a last resort to evade justice.
According to him, security agencies, including the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Police Force, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), have been tasked with identifying and prosecuting individuals within government institutions who allegedly aided Adeyemi’s operations.
“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.
He further argued that in Nigeria, corruption allegations often become convenient distractions from substantive 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 stated.
Ajayi maintained that Adeyemi understood this public psychology and was deliberately exploiting it.
“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,” he added.
The presidential aide acknowledged that there were systemic weaknesses that allowed the alleged fraud to flourish but argued that the same institutions eventually uncovered the activities and acted against them.
He noted that while public commentators had rightly criticised the lapses that enabled the operation, many had overlooked the role of government institutions in detecting and stopping it.
The controversy centres on Adeyemi, who allegedly operated as Director-General of the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an organisation the Presidency insists does not exist under the current administration.
Authorities claim he forged appointment documents, maintained dozens of bank accounts linked to fictitious agencies, hosted diplomatic meetings and operated from government facilities before his arrest.
Investigations into the matter are ongoing, with security agencies expected to identify and prosecute anyone found to have aided the alleged scheme, whether within or outside government institutions.
