Loading ...ABUJA, NIGERIA — Human rights activist and frontline opposition leader, Omoyele Sowore, has launched a blistering assault on the Presidency following the multi-billion naira “phantom agency” scandal rocking the federal administration.
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Reacting to the ongoing criminal prosecution of suspected syndicate head Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, Sowore accused the political elite of operating an unprecedented kleptocracy where entirely fictitious councils can infiltrate the statutory national budget through deep-pocket bribery.
The former African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate directed his primary fire at the Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, calling him a “thief” and asserting that the current administrative scandal fits a long-documented pattern of financial malfeasance.
“The Power of Silence”
Sowore decried what he termed the extreme docility of the Nigerian populace, stating that public indifference is the primary catalyst fuel allowing monumental state-level fraud to go unpunished.
“Nigerians don’t know the power they have, that’s why they’re silent,” Sowore stated, balancing heavy disappointment with civic advocacy. “A country where they’re running fake agencies and bribing officials to put them in the national budget, and they’re all walking free.”
The activist noted that the ease with which non-existent entities like the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) bypassed national security profiling, legislative scrutiny, and accountant-general verification to secure a ₦1.3 billion line item in the federal budget is a damning indictment of the state’s entire regulatory framework.
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Digging Up Old Grudges: The $25k Claim
The core of Sowore’s public outburst, however, centers on a direct character assassination of the current Chief of Staff. Refusing to decouple the current multi-billion naira scandal from historical records, the activist brought up past altercations between his media machinery and the former Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“The Chief of Staff is a thief. I exposed him before for $25k theft,” Sowore alleged.
The reference points to a previous expose detailing historical legal and disciplinary records involving Gbajabiamila before his return to Nigerian politics. By linking the old data directly to the fresh 2026 budget crisis, Sowore argued that the presidency’s inner cabinet lacks the moral authority to claim victimhood or pose as whistleblowers in the ongoing Adeyemi prosecution.
Inside the ₦1.3 Billion Budget Hole
The back-and-forth occurs as institutional analysts and political scientists across the federation demand an independent panel of inquiry to audit all operational and residential units inside the State House.
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While the Presidency, through Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga, has repeatedly claimed that Gbajabiamila was the person who originally petitioned law enforcement over Adeyemi’s forgery scheme, public skepticism remains high. Opposition networks find it highly improbable that an individual could hold bilateral meetings with foreign diplomats and input detailed parameters into the 2026 Appropriation Act without heavy institutional complicity from high-ranking state actors.
With the Federal High Court in Abuja set to resume the criminal trial on July 27, 2026, Sowore’s inflammatory statements have added intense political pressure to what was already a high-profile judicial showdown. Media watchdogs and civic coalitions note that if the suspect follows through on his promise to open up and present internal transactional trails in open court, the resulting fallout could permanently damage the public legitimacy of the current cabinet.
