A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Showunmi, has strongly condemned the presidency’s handling of the corruption scandal involving Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), a disputed government agency.
Showunmi, who is the Convener of the Alternative Platform, a national opposition movement, gave the reaction in a statement made available to The Eagle Online on Friday.
His reaction came on the heels of an ongoing controversy involving a multi-billion-naira budgetary allocation and alleged appointment-for-cash racketeering.
The presidency had issued a statement defending Gbajabiamila against allegations brought forward by Adeniyi Matthew, who paraded himself as the Director-General of PFIPC.
Matthew had claimed Gbajabiamila demanded billions of naira from the take-off grant of a purported federal agency and collected N400 million through proxies to facilitate his appointment.
Reacting in a statement on Wednesday, the special adviser to the president on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, described Matthew as an impostor and “serial fraudster”, insisting he was neither appointed by the presidency nor recognised as the director-general of the purported PFIPC.
Onanuga said security agencies had been investigating Matthew since October 2025 following petitions by the Office of the Chief of Staff over alleged forgery of appointment letters and impersonation of government officials.
According to the presidency, investigations by the police established that the agency did not exist and that Matthew allegedly forged official documents, fraudulently presented himself as a presidential appointee, operated dozens of bank accounts, including some allegedly opened in the names of fictitious government agencies, and even secured a Central Bank account through false representations.
The statement partly reads, “We are aware of the public interest in the matter of a man called Adeyemi Adeniyi Matthew, who has been parading himself as the director-general of a fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council cum Presidential Economic Advisory Council.
“The office of the Chief of Staff to the President first blew the whistle on the existence of the illegal agency, following complaints from officials of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council that another government agency appeared to be functioning at cross-purposes with it.”
It further urged Nigerians to disregard Matthew’s allegations against the chief of staff, stressing that the matter was already before the court. However, the presidency’s explanation has continued to attract criticism.
Weighing in, Showunmi questioned what he described as the absence of institutional accountability. He wrote, “Is this really the life we are living in this country? As the Yoruba would ask, ‘Ṣé ayé lẹ̀ ń jẹ́ yìí?’ I could cry just reading this.”
Showunmi said the issue went beyond the allegations themselves, arguing that the lack of an immediate institutional response was more troubling. “A nation that treats accountability as optional will always struggle to achieve consequential outcomes.
“We waste the time of generations and then celebrate pedestrian accomplishments as though we are still emerging from the age of rudimentary governance,” he stated. “What troubles me most is not even the allegation itself. It is the apparent absence of institutional outrage.”
According to him, serious allegations should automatically trigger independent investigations to establish the facts and determine responsibility. “In serious countries, the mere appearance of such allegations would trigger immediate action. A special investigative panel would be constituted.
Questions would be asked. “How was the budget line created? Who approved it? Through what process did it pass scrutiny? How was office space allocated within the Federal Secretariat? Who signed the relevant documents? Who supervised the process? Who benefited?”
Showunmi stated. He maintained that such investigations should focus on facts rather than public drama. “The objective would not be noise or public spectacle. The objective would be to establish facts, identify failures, and impose consequences where necessary,” he said.
Lamenting what he described as a recurring pattern, Showunmi said, “Instead, we often drift from scandal to scandal with little sense of urgency, as though the erosion of public trust carries no cost.” “This is why institutions matter. This is why accountability matters. This is why consequences matter,” he further noted.
Warning about the long-term implications of weak oversight, he said: “No nation can sustainably develop when impunity becomes routine and oversight becomes performative.”
Showunmi added: “Sometimes it takes all the grace of the Holy Spirit not to lose one’s mind watching the same patterns repeat themselves while the country continues to pay the price.”
He concluded: “A society rises when wrongdoing is investigated, truth is established, and responsibility is enforced not when citizens simply move on to the next outrage.”
