Adeniyi Adeyemi, accused of fraudulently parading himself as head of a non-existent Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, has gone into hiding claiming his life is under threat — even as mounting evidence including a 2026 budget allocation of N1.3 billion and a government-approved waiver to recruit 300 staff members continues to contradict the Presidency’s claim that the council never existed.
The man the Presidency calls a con artist says he’s now running for his life.
Adeniyi Adeyemi, the controversial figure at the centre of Nigeria’s most bewildering governance scandal, told Premium Times on Thursday, as reported by Daily Trust, that he has gone underground after receiving threats he links directly to his refusal to back down against the Tinubu administration.
“They are now after my life. I have gone into hiding. I’m underground,” he said. “I don’t consider myself safe.”
Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga fired back, tagging Adeyemi a “con artist” and confirming police had charged him and two co-defendants with eight counts at the Federal High Court — filed November 27, 2025, with hearing scheduled for July 27.
But the Presidency’s position keeps colliding with uncomfortable paper trails.
The Cable reports that in August 2025, the federal government granted the PFIPC a special waiver — signed by Mimi Abu, Director of Organisation Design in the Office of the Head of Civil Service — to recruit 300 staff members, including 10 directors on Grade Level 17, specifically exempting the council from Nigeria’s general civil service recruitment embargo.
Earlier revelations confirmed the council was allocated N1.3 billion in the 2026 Appropriation Act and that Adeyemi operates from an office inside the Federal Secretariat in Abuja.
Adeyemi himself added a bombshell bribery allegation — claiming he paid N400 million to secure his appointment and still owes N200 million, with the dispute arising after he refused to surrender 48 per cent of the agency’s take-off grant. The Presidency did not address those allegations against Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila.
“They are just playing a defence mechanism to shut me up. My organisation was set up in 2024,” Adeyemi said.
The case heads to court on July 27.
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