Internal saboteurs behind fraudulent presidential council — Aide

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, has dismissed allegations linking the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, to the activities of the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC).

In a post on Friday, the Presidential Aide noted that internal collaborators undoubtedly enabled Adeniyi in his alleged scheme.

He noted that corruption allegations are often weaponized in Nigeria to distract the public from real issues and evade accountability.

According to the statement, the easiest and most believable allegation anyone can throw at a Nigerian public officer is corruption.

“Once that accusation is thrown into the mix, the water is polluted, the lines are blurred, and everyone is kept busy arguing over distractions rather than the core issues,” he said.

Ajayi stated that Matthew Adeniyi understands Nigerian public psychology and is exploiting it expertly to shield himself.

He described him as an irredeemable con artist attempting to drag the name of the Chief of Staff into his criminal enterprise, calling Gbajabiamila his last straw.

He further acknowledged that many commentators have rightly pointed to the systemic failure that allowed such an elaborate, fraudulent scheme to flourish.

He noted that while daredevil criminals operating around government institutions to pull off spectacular heists are common across the world, many commentators have overlooked how the Nigerian system eventually detected this fraud and fished the culprit out.
Contrary to the anything-goes narrative being promoted, Ajayi emphasized that the system itself raised the red flag and dealt with the issue administratively.

He added that the task is now for the DSS, the Police, and the EFCC to unravel the criminal network asserting that everyone found to have played a role should be arrested and prosecuted.