In the southwestern state of Osun, the head of a bogus government body the head of the nation’s fake Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) was detained after weeks of running from authorities. It came after a warrant issued by the Abuja Federal High Court found he failed to attend a court hearing on charges of forgery and impersonation.
Adeyemi, who had presented himself as the council’s “director general,” is a former lawyer who had told the press that the agency had been created in 2024 to lure foreign investment. Yet investigators say the council never held a single deal and had no record of operating a bank account.
The PFIPC was reportedly funded with a fictitious allocation of 1.3 bn naira in the 2026 Appropriation Act and claimed to exist in the Federal Secretariat, with a slate of forged documents that, according to the presidency, bore the signature of the chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila.
Lawyers for the presidency argued that forensic analysis exposed the signature as forged, and that the PFIPC had never served salaries or received funds from the Accountant‑General’s Office.
The arrest has attracted condemnation from civil society groups, opposition politicians and senior legal figures—all of whom have demanded an independent inquiry into the puppet agency’s operations.
Adeyemi’s lawyer, Genesis Francis, said the defendant had been prevented from attending court because he feared for his safety, a claim echoed in an open letter Adeyemi sent to President Tinubu.
“My life is in danger,” — Adeyemi, according to local reports, when he spoke to the press after his arrest.
He has so far maintained his innocence while the police plan to transfer him to the capital’s main police headquarters for further questioning.
The case underscores the growing scrutiny of corruption probes in Nigeria, with President Tinubu citing the investigation as one of several steps to root out systemic mismanagement within the federal government.
