Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew is the self-acclaimed Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, also known as the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC). His name has dominated public discourse in recent weeks, linked to feats that could compete for Guinness World Records. He is said to have secured office space in the Federal Secretariat using this alleged ghost agency. He has also been photographed with ambassadors of foreign nations and top government officials, including the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. These images have flooded the media, leaving many wondering how an allegedly non-existent “ghost” agency could operate so boldly within the corridors of power.
Although the matter between Adeyemi and the Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, has been taken to the police — which has filed charges against the self-styled Director General — several critical questions remain unanswered in this unfolding case.
The most potent of these is directed at the National Assembly, which allocated the sum of N1.3 billion to the agency in the 2026 budget.
As Adeyemi himself confirmed in a press conference last week, the agency appears in the 2026 budget and operates from a suite in the Federal Secretariat. He posed sharp questions to the legislature and Gbajabiamila: “The national budget does not emerge in isolation. It passes through multiple layers of technical drafting, executive coordination, ministerial inputs, budget office review, and finally legislative scrutiny by both chambers of the National Assembly, where the Chief of Staff has meritoriously served for a good 20 years — rising from Minority Leader to Majority Leader and eventually Speaker for four years.
“So, the question becomes unavoidable: at what point in this process did references to a non-existent agency allegedly enter the official record? And if they are indeed present in official documentation, what does that imply about the integrity of the process that produced and approved those documents?”
Adeyemi further claimed that the disputed council maintains a domiciliary account and a Treasury Single Account domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Key questions persist: What level of scrutiny did the National Assembly apply before approving the agency’s budget? If the agency is real, who created it? Was there any enabling law passed by the National Assembly to legitimise its operations? And which agency defended the budget before the Senate and House of Representatives?
These lapses point to deeper rot within Nigeria’s legislative arm. If the Senate or House of Representatives politicised a document as sensitive as the national budget, its integrity would be seriously compromised. It is little wonder that the Nigerian parliament has one of the worst turnover rates of legislators in the world after each election cycle since 2003.
If the legislature fails to defend the interests of the people, the people will be justified in sending most of these lawmakers packing in the next election. The lawmakers may believe they are secured by singing “on your mandate we shall stand” refrain, but they should not cry foul when they are rejected by the very constituents who sent them to the chambers. The core duties of a legislator — lawmaking, oversight of the other arms of government, and representation — must be fulfilled. Failure to do so carries inevitable consequences, such as the much-talked-about high turnover of legislators in the chambers after each election cycle. Let us remind them that 2027 is not far away.
