THE GHOST IN THE BUDGET: HOW A DORMANT BUHARI-ERA COUNCIL BECAME NIGERIA’S ₦1.3 BILLION SCANDAL

By IGBENEWS Investigative Desk

The man at the centre of the storm is Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew. He has been arrested, charged with eight counts of forgery and impersonation, and branded a “serial fraudster” by the Presidency. But the PFIPC scandal is not about one man. It is about a system so broken that a phantom agency secured a ₦1.302 billion budget allocation, opened accounts at the Central Bank of Nigeria, and operated from the Federal Secretariat for over a year—all while the government insists it never existed.

How did this happen? The answer lies in a legal loophole that nobody is talking about: the Buhari-era Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) was never formally dissolved.

TWO COUNCILS, TWO NAMES, ONE FATAL OVERSIGHT

President Muhammadu Buhari established the Presidential Economic Advisory Council on September 16, 2019, to replace the Economic Management Team headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. It was a formal body with eight distinguished economists—Professor Doyin Salami as chairman, Charles Soludo, Bismark Rewane, and others—reporting directly to the President with a defined mandate to advise on fiscal policy, economic growth, and poverty reduction.

President Buhari inaugurated them on October 9, 2019, charging them to “coordinate and synthesise ideas and efforts on how to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years”. This was a legitimate, gazetted institution with an official identity.

Then came President Bola Tinubu. On March 27, 2024, he established the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC)—a 31-member body chaired by himself, including the Vice President, Senate President, Governors Forum Chairman, and private sector leaders like Aliko Dangote and Tony Elumelu. It was inaugurated on July 4, 2024.

The critical detail: When Tinubu created the PECC, the Buhari-era PEAC was never formally dissolved. No gazette. No Budget Office circular. No official revocation of its institutional identity.

Dormant in Nigeria’s government system is not the same as deleted. And that dormant status was exactly what was exploited.

THE BUDGET DOCUMENT DOES NOT LIE

The 2026 Appropriation Act—signed by President Tinubu on April 17, 2026—contains a line item that has become the centre of this scandal.

Listed under the Presidency at line 18, budget code 0111062001, is an entity officially designated as the “Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council”.

The allocation: ₦1,302,978,784 (over ₦1.3 billion).

The breakdown:

Category Amount

Personnel (Salaries) ₦573,260,187

Allowances & Social Contribution ₦229,718,596

Overhead ₦200,000,001

Capital (Research & Development) ₦300,000,000

TOTAL ₦1,302,978,784

The capital allocation of ₦300 million sits under “Research and Development,” classified as “Acquisition of Non-Tangible Assets.” Project-level entries include ₦182.5 million for “logistics for preparation of hosting World Investment Summit 2026”.

How does a “fictitious” agency get a budget code? The 2026 Budget Call Circular was issued exclusively to legitimate Ministries, Departments and Agencies—yet the PFIPC was allegedly inserted into the proposal by someone within the Presidency. The National Assembly then voted on and authorised the budget code.

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THE OPERATIONS WERE REAL

Despite the Presidency’s insistence that the PFIPC “never existed,” the evidence tells a different story:

· A Treasury Single Account at the Central Bank of Nigeria

· An office at the Federal Secretariat Complex Phase III, 2nd Floor

· Operation for over a year from that office

· Staff recruitment: Adeyemi wrote to the Accountant-General of the Federation requesting staff to fill vacancies including Principal Accountant, Accountant I, Principal Auditor, Senior Auditor, and Auditor I

· Diplomatic engagements: Adeyemi hosted foreign ambassadors at the Wells Carlton Hotel in Asokoro on October 10, 2025—without recourse to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

· A request for a note verbale from the Foreign Affairs Ministry to facilitate US visas for staff

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself wrote to the National Security Adviser and the Chief of Staff on October 15, 2025, requesting clarification on the status of Adeyemi’s agency, noting that his actions “contravene extant rules and regulations guiding diplomatic practices globally”.

THE FORGERY AND THE DEATH

The Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, first blew the whistle on October 17, 2025, writing to the DSS and Police about “fraudsters and imposters” forging appointment letters from his office. The forged documents bore “falsified signatures, reference/folio numbers, and seals”.

Police arrested Adeyemi in Abuja on October 27, 2025, recovering forged documents from his office and residence. An eight-count charge was filed on November 27, 2025.

But here is where the story takes a dark turn. Adeyemi told police that one Dolapo Babatunde Tanimola assisted him in procuring the fake appointment letter. When police went after Tanimola, they found that he had died in a fire incident at Kachi Hotel in Abuja on October 22, 2025—five days before Adeyemi’s arrest. His body was confirmed at the morgue.

Adeyemi himself has claimed his life is in danger and that he has survived multiple assassination attempts.

THE QUESTIONS THAT REMAIN

The PFIPC scandal raises fundamental questions about Nigeria’s budget process and institutional integrity:

1. Who inserted the PFIPC into the budget? The 2026 Budget Call Circular was issued exclusively to MDAs. Someone within the Presidency had to submit this proposal.

2. Which ministry defended the estimates before the National Assembly?

3. Which committees scrutinised and approved the allocation?

4. Who signed the budget into law with this line item intact? President Tinubu himself assented to the 2026 Appropriation Act on April 17, 2026.

5. How did a “fictitious” agency open accounts at the CBN?

6. How did it secure office space at the Federal Secretariat?

As former Vice President Atiku Abubakar put it: the Presidency’s explanation “asks Nigerians to believe that one private citizen single-handedly forged presidential documents, impersonated senior government officials, established an office inside the Federal Secretariat, opened dozens of bank accounts bearing government identities, hosted foreign ambassadors without diplomatic clearance, and embedded a phantom agency into the machinery of government without any insider assistance”.

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THE LEGAL LOOPHOLE

The core of this scandal is not Adeyemi’s alleged forgery. It is the dormant legal status of the Buhari-era PEAC.

Because the PEAC was never formally dissolved, its institutional identity remained in the government’s budget systems. When Adeyemi and his associates inserted the “Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council” into the 2026 budget, they were exploiting a name that already existed in government records—even if the entity itself was no longer active.

A coalition of civil society organisations has demanded answers, stating: “Public institutions are not created by press releases, while presidential appointments are not validated by social media claims”. They warned that “a questionable entity does not become a lawful agency because it wrangled its way into a budget document”.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

The PFIPC scandal is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of a deeper malaise: institutional memory loss and bureaucratic negligence in Nigeria’s governance system.

· A legitimate council (PEAC) was created in 2019 and never formally wound down.

· A new council (PECC) was created in 2024 with a different name and structure.

· The old council’s dormant identity became a vehicle for fraud.

· ₦1.3 billion was allocated to a phantom agency in the national budget.

· Nobody in the budget process—from the Presidency to the National Assembly—flagged the anomaly.

As the Coalition for Truth and Justice stated: “An illegal structure does not become legal merely because it appears in some official-looking corner”.

CONCLUSION

Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew will face trial on July 27, 2026. But prosecuting one man will not fix a system that allowed a phantom agency to secure a budget code, open CBN accounts, recruit staff, host foreign ambassadors, and receive ₦1.3 billion in public funds.

The PFIPC scandal is not about Adeyemi. It is about the institutional failures that made Adeyemi possible.

Until Nigeria addresses the rot in its budget process—the lack of oversight, the absence of institutional memory, the failure to formally dissolve dormant agencies—the next Adeyemi is already planning the next scam.

The ghost in the budget has been exposed. But will anyone exercise it?

IGBENEWS Investigative Desk

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