Fresh revelations have emerged over the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), with its alleged promoter, Prince Adeyemi Matthew Adeniyi, claiming the agency was inserted into the Federal Government’s budget long after he had abandoned efforts to secure its inclusion following his arrest.
The claims, made during an interview with social media influencer Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, raise fresh questions about the integrity of Nigeria’s budget preparation process and the role of officials involved in compiling and approving government appropriations.
Adeniyi, who is facing criminal proceedings over allegations surrounding the controversial agency, insisted that he had no hand in the eventual budgetary allocation after his legal troubles began.
He also exonerated the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, from direct involvement in the budget process, maintaining that all his dealings were with officials of the Budget Office.
According to him, his first attempt to have the agency recognised came in December 2024 when he submitted documents seeking its inclusion in the 2025 Appropriation Bill. He said officials informed him that the budget process had already closed and advised him to target the 2026 budget instead.
He claimed that a female Budget Office official facilitated his access to the Director-General of the Budget Office before he was referred to another senior director who allegedly assured him that efforts would continue towards securing the agency’s inclusion in a subsequent budget.
One aspect of Adeniyi’s account likely to attract scrutiny is his claim that during the meeting, a senior official allegedly asked him, “Where is my shini?”—a slang expression commonly understood to mean a request for gratification. Adeniyi, however, said he neither paid nor offered cash to any official.
Instead, he admitted promising prospective employment opportunities if the agency eventually became operational. “Honestly, I did not pay anybody. The only thing I promised was that if I started employing people, I could help them with employment opportunities,” he said.
The claim introduces another dimension to the unfolding controversy, suggesting that promises of future benefits, rather than direct financial inducements, may have featured in his engagements with officials.
Adeniyi maintained that every move to secure the agency’s inclusion ended immediately after his arrest. According to him, he instructed those assisting him to discontinue all efforts because he had become preoccupied with defending himself in court. “Immediately there was a problem, everything stopped… I told her to let everything stop.”
He therefore expressed shock when he later learnt that PFIPC had eventually appeared in the Federal Government’s budget. “I didn’t even know until they said it was inside the budget. I had already left the office. Where would I still pursue the budget when I was already facing the court?” he asked.
His account raises a critical question: Who eventually processed and approved the agency’s inclusion after its promoter had allegedly withdrawn from the process? Although Adeniyi admitted he could not explain how the agency eventually appeared in the budget, he insisted he played no further role after his arrest.
Questions over budget process
If Adeniyi’s account is accurate, investigators may have to determine who initiated the final inclusion of the agency, who approved the relevant budget entry and whether due diligence was conducted before public funds were allocated. His narrative suggests that discussions on the proposal had taken place within the Budget Office months before the budget was finalised, even though the agency had not been legally established.
The revelations could intensify calls for a comprehensive audit of the budget preparation process to determine how an organisation now widely described as fake secured a budgetary allocation.
N400 million allegation
Adeniyi also addressed allegations that he paid N400 million to facilitate his appointment. He claimed the money was delivered in United States dollars through his late associate, Dolapo Tanimola. However, he admitted he could not confirm whether the money ever reached the intended recipient.
Significantly, he denied ever meeting Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila before or after the appointment process. Instead, he maintained that Tanimola handled all communications on his behalf.
“I never met Gbajabiamila physically before and after he was appointed. Dolapo Tanimola handled everything for me,” he said.
The latest disclosures add another layer to the PFIPC controversy, shifting attention from the alleged promoter to the internal processes through which a non-existent agency was reportedly captured in the Federal Government’s budget.
With multiple institutions already investigating the matter, Adeniyi’s claims are likely to increase pressure on relevant authorities to establish who authorised the inclusion of PFIPC in the budget, whether procurement and budgetary procedures were compromised, and whether public officials played any role in the process.
The claims made by Adeniyi have not been independently verified. Relevant government agencies and officials mentioned in the interview have yet to publicly respond to the specific allegations.
