How dramatic capture of fake Presidential Council boss Adeyemi unfolded

Adeniyi Adeyemi, the self-styled Director-General of the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, was arrested by Nigeria Police Force Intelligence Response Team operatives in Osun State on Tuesday after switching off his phones, evading DSS surveillance for over a week, and failing to appear for his arraignment on an eight-count charge of conspiracy, forgery and impersonation, The PUNCH reports.

THEY GOT HIM — HIDING IN OSUN, PHONES OFF, STILL NOT SAFE

He switched off his phones. He wrote to the President. He told his lawyer he feared he would be killed. None of it saved him.

Adeniyi Adeyemi, the self-styled Director-General of the alleged Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, was arrested in Osun State on Tuesday morning by operatives of the Nigeria Police Force’s Intelligence Response Team — hours after a Federal High Court in Abuja issued a bench warrant for his arrest following his failure to appear for arraignment, The PUNCH reports.

The hunt had been on for more than a week. DSS operatives trailed Adeyemi first but struggled to locate him after he went dark, switching off his mobile phones for approximately two days. The DSS team eventually retreated. That was when the IRT moved in, led by CSP Moses Lohor, a veteran Osun operative with a track record of high-profile security operations in the state.

Lohor’s team picked up the trail and closed in. “The arrest took place on Tuesday morning by the IRT squad, who immediately moved him to Abuja. After he was arrested, he was taken to Ibadan and from there to Abuja,” a security source told The PUNCH. Osun State Police Command Commissioner Ibrahim Gotan was informed only after the operation was completed. The arrest was later confirmed by the Force Public Relations Officer’s Personal Assistant, Aminu Koji, in a terse statement: “We have just confirmed the arrest of Mr. Adeniyi Adeyemi by a team of the Intelligence Response Team in Osun State.”

The dramatic capture came just one day after Adeyemi published an open letter to President Tinubu claiming he had received “verified, highly reliable intelligence” that he would be eliminated if he appeared in public unprotected, and alleging that the death of a key intermediary in the matter had reinforced his fears. His own lawyer, Genesis Francis, told the court he had not seen or spoken to his client in over a month. “Someone has to be alive before justice is heard in this case,” Francis said.

Adeyemi faces eight counts of conspiracy, forgery and impersonation. If convicted on the forgery counts alone, he faces up to 21 years in prison without the option of a fine. The case has been adjourned to September 30 for arraignment.