Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, the embattled head of the controversial and disowned Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, has broken his silence regarding how the unrecognized agency was smuggled into the country’s national budget.
Speaking during a video call on Wednesday with social media critic Martins Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, Matthew asserted that his actions were driven entirely by a patriotic desire to attract foreign direct investment into Nigeria and promote the current administration, rather than for personal enrichment or fraudulent gain.
The council sparked a massive national uproar after it appeared as a funded beneficiary in the official 2026 Appropriation Act, despite explicit statements from the Presidency maintaining that the agency is completely non-existent and was never approved by President Bola Tinubu.
Addressing this contradiction, Matthew expressed confusion over how the entity secured a rumored 400 million naira office allocation in the budget when nobody formally appeared to defend it. He revealed that he was actually held in security detention for 23 days between October and November 2025—the exact period the national budget was being prepared and finalized by the National Assembly—after being invited by former Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun to clarify the legitimacy of his appointment.
Matthew further explained that the initial funding to establish the council’s office was provided by his close friend, Dolapo Tanimola, who tragically died recently in a hotel fire accident in the Utako district of Abuja.
According to the embattled official, Tanimola had coordinated with an intermediary to secure the appointment letter from the office of the Chief of Staff to the President. Following a formal petition by the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, alleging forgery and impersonation of the Presidency, Matthew was previously arrested, arraigned in court, and locked out of the designated office space, which has since been reallocated to another government official.
In response to the intensifying public outcry over the fiscal loophole, President Tinubu has officially ordered the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to launch a thorough investigation into how the unauthorized council bypassed federal filters to land in the 2026 budget, mandating the prosecution of all complicit individuals.
Defending his innocence, Matthew maintained that he possesses authentic documentation proving the legitimate establishment of the agency and announced his readiness to voluntarily present himself alongside his complete files to the Nigeria Police Force and the Department of State Services (DSS) to assist with the ongoing graft investigation.