A council the Presidency publicly disowned as non-existent has turned up in Nigeria’s 2026 Appropriation Act with a ₦1.3 billion budget allocation — throwing the federal government’s official disclaimer into serious question.
The Nigerian government said the council doesn’t exist. Then someone checked the budget.
On June 11, Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila issued a firm public disclaimer, distancing the presidency from one Adeniyi Adeyemi, who had been presenting himself as head of the “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.”
“It has come to the notice of the Federal Government of Nigeria and specifically the Office of the Chief of Staff to His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR that a certain Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi…is portraying himself to the general public as having been appointed by my office,” Gbajabiamila said, adding that no such office exists under Tinubu’s government.
According to The Cable, foreign missions, development organisations and financial institutions were urged to disregard any claims linking the council to the presidency. Case closed, apparently.
Except Adeyemi wasn’t having it.
At a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, he rejected the disclaimer as a “glaring contradiction” of official government records — pointing to CBN-registered accounts, an office at the federal secretariat, and approval for over 300 staff from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service. He called on President Tinubu to constitute an independent investigative panel to reconcile those records with the presidency’s denial.
Then came the bombshell.
A review of the 2026 Appropriation Act shows the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council is expressly listed under the presidency — with a total budget of ₦1,302,978,784. That breaks down as ₦802,978,783 for personnel costs, ₦200,000,001 for overhead and ₦300,000,000 for capital projects.
So Nigeria’s federal government publicly declared an agency doesn’t exist — while simultaneously budgeting over ₦1.3 billion for it.
Someone has some very serious explaining to do.
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