By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
Every nation has its peculiarities. Every society occasionally produces stories so extraordinary that they leave citizens wondering how such things could happen. But Nigeria appears to have mastered the art of making the unimaginable seem routine.
Here, the bizarre often becomes believable. The implausible becomes official. And what would provoke constitutional crises elsewhere frequently becomes another passing headline before the nation moves on to the next spectacle.
This is Nigeria. The latest controversy surrounding the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, PFIPC, perfectly illustrates this disturbing reality.
According to the Presidency, the PFIPC had no legal existence. Yet the same entity reportedly appeared in the 2026 Appropriation Act with a budgetary allocation exceeding ₦1.3 billion. It reportedly operated from office accommodation within the Federal Secretariat and, by every outward appearance, functioned as a government institution. If that does not trouble us, perhaps nothing will.
According to reports, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who presented himself as the Director General of the PFIPC, allegedly interacted with senior government officials, engaged foreign diplomats and investors and conducted official activities before his arrest and prosecution. He has denied wrongdoing and maintains that his appointment was genuine.
Whatever the courts ultimately decide, the controversy raises questions that extend far beyond one individual.
Public institutions do not materialise out of thin air. Government offices are not allocated by accident. Budgetary allocations running into billions of naira do not ordinarily find their way into an Appropriation Act without passing through numerous institutional checkpoints.
Government bank accounts are not opened by magic. Public institutions initiate Appropriation Bills. They pass through ministries, departments and agencies. They are processed by the Budget Office, scrutinised by committees of the National Assembly, debated, harmonised and eventually signed into law by the President.
How then did an agency whose legal existence is now disputed reportedly navigate every one of these processes?
That is the question Nigerians deserve to have answered. This is why reducing the controversy to one individual misses the larger issue.
If a purported agency reportedly secured a budgetary allocation of more than ₦1.3 billion, occupied office accommodation within the Federal Secretariat and acquired the appearance of official legitimacy, then this cannot simply be the story of one man. It is either a spectacular institutional failure or evidence that critical safeguards failed somewhere along the chain. Either possibility should concern every Nigerian.
During a televised interview, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew made allegations involving the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila. The Presidency, through the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, firmly rejected those allegations and maintained that the PFIPC never existed in law.
But the controversy cannot end with allegations on one side and denials on the other. If the allegations are false, a transparent investigation should establish that beyond doubt. If there is any substance to them, Nigerians deserve to know that as well. Public confidence is not restored through press statements. It is restored through facts.
Indeed, many Nigerians were left asking questions that the official response did not directly answer.
If the PFIPC never legally existed, who initiated its budget proposal? Which ministry or department transmitted it? Which officials processed it? Which committees of the National Assembly scrutinised and approved it?
How was the office accommodation reportedly allocated within the Federal Secretariat? How were official banking arrangements reportedly established? Who, if anyone, failed in their oversight responsibilities?
These are institutional questions. They demand institutional answers. Perhaps Nigerians were not entirely shocked because we have seen this movie before.
We were once told that a snake swallowed ₦36 million belonging to JAMB. We witnessed the astonishing disappearance of a vessel that was under official investigation.
We have heard of ghost workers collecting salaries for years, ghost pensioners drawing benefits long after retirement or death, budget-padding controversies, projects that exist only on paper, and contracts fully paid for but never executed.
One unbelievable story replaces another. Each time, Nigerians express outrage. Each time, the outrage subsides. Each time, accountability struggles to catch up before the next national absurdity arrives. Somewhere along the way, we normalised the abnormal. That is perhaps the greatest danger.
Not merely that extraordinary things happen. But that they no longer surprise us. No nation builds strong institutions by laughing away institutional failures.
No democracy strengthens itself by treating accountability as optional. No society progresses when implausible explanations become substitutes for transparent investigations.
If the allegations against Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew are ultimately proved, his prosecution alone would answer only one question. Who allegedly fronted the scheme? It would not answer the far more important one. How did the system permit it?
It would not explain who processed the paperwork, who approved the budgetary provision, who allocated office accommodation, who authorised official arrangements or where the institutional safeguards broke down.
People prepare budgets. People allocate office accommodation. People exercise oversight. Institutions function through people.
If the system failed, Nigerians deserve to know where, how and why. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson from this controversy.
Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of unbelievable stories. It suffers from a shortage of believable accountability.
Elsewhere, stories like these would trigger exhaustive investigations reaching every institution connected to the chain of events.
Here, they too often become trending topics. We laugh. We argue. We create memes. We move on until the next unbelievable story arrives.
No nation can build strong institutions on selective accountability or public amnesia.
Nigeria deserves institutions that inspire confidence rather than suspicion, budgets that command public trust rather than controversy and investigations that answer questions rather than multiply them. Until that happens, the impossible will continue to become possible.
And Nigerians, having become accustomed to the absurd, will continue to utter a three-word sentence that has become both our explanation and our national indictment.
This is Nigeria.
Dr Lemmy Ughegbe, FIMC, CMC
lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
