Femi Gbajabiamila is Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, a role that sits at the very centre of the Presidency. Before this, he served as Speaker of the House of Representatives, one of Nigeria’s most powerful legislative offices.
It is not as if the position of Chief of Staff is always getting applause. From time immemorial, its success was measured in coordination, policy follow-through and administrative discipline, work that mostly happens away from cameras. When things go wrong elsewhere in government, the office often absorbs the blame regardless.
That reality is playing out now in the controversy around the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC). A self-styled Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi, accused Gbajabiamila of demanding bribes tied to the agency.
The facts undercut the accusation. For starters, it was Gbajabiamila’s own office that first flagged Adeyemi’s suspicious activity to security agencies, effectively acting as the whistleblower in the case.
His legal team responded by issuing a 72-hour cease-and-desist notice, followed by a N10 billion defamation suit filed through senior lawyer Kemi Pinheiro, challenging Adeyemi to produce actual evidence or face the consequences.
Adeyemi’s credibility is already in question elsewhere. He is standing trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja, accused of forging presidential letterheads and faking an appointment letter bearing a counterfeited signature.
The Presidency has also issued a clear disclaimer: PFIPC was never established by any law, executive order, or official instrument. Legally, it does not exist, which makes hollow claims that a public official demanded money tied to it.
No transaction receipts, documents, audio or video have surfaced to support the bribery allegations. A coalition of civil society groups has since dismissed the claims as unsubstantiated.
None of this means public officials should escape scrutiny. But scrutiny works best when it is rooted in evidence, not noise. Gbajabiamila’s record and the facts of this particular case deserve to be judged the same way, on performance and proof, not volume of accusation.
