Fake It 'Til You Make It: Man Charged With Running Phony Government Agency

DAKAR, Senegal -- A Nigerian man accused of setting up a fraudulent government agency and securing public money and office space for it in a federal government complex has been charged with forgery and impersonation.Prosecutors say that the man, Adeniyi Adeyemi, posed as the head of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council beginning in 2024, forging documents to request offices and bank accounts. He appeared in a Federal High Court in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, on Wednesday, and pleaded not guilty to all eight charges against him.Nigerians are closely following the case, shocked that an agency the government says does not exist could operate at the highest levels of the country's bureaucracy. Critics say that the scandal exposes corruption at the heart of the Nigerian government, and questions have been raised surrounding the role played by the president's chief of staff.A spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria said that his chief of staff first blew the whistle on the illegal agency last October, sending a letter to police and the country's domestic intelligence agency asking them to investigate the agency for "the forgery of official appointment letters.""They have been parading themselves as a legitimate government agency, hosting meetings with both foreigners and Nigerian citizens," the letter read. Adeyemi was also accused of submitting a formal request asking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate visas to the United States.Adeyemi, who often posted videos of himself meeting with government officials, diplomats and foreign investors on social media, has denied that the agency was fake or that he is a fraud.He held a news conference in June at which he claimed he paid the chief of staff a bribe of 400 million naira (about $300,000) through a proxy, to secure his position as the head of the agency. He said that he and the chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, disagreed after Gbajabiamila requested even more money.Gbajabiamila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Adeyemi's profession before his purported appointment to lead the government agency is unclear, though Tinubu's spokesperson said he had "a history of fraudulent misrepresentation."Even after Gbajabiamila raised the alarm and Adeyemi was arrested, public documents show the agency was allocated nearly $1 million in public funds, though officials have said no funds were released.In August, a government commission said it had found no evidence linking Gbajabiamila to Adeyemi's appointment and that Adeyemi had forged government documents, adding that the chief of staff's office never issued any letters and that it had found no trace of any official government correspondence between Adeyemi and Gbajabiamila.In August, Tinubu also ordered an investigation into a second fake agency, the National Brands Development and Made in Nigeria Special Project Office. The agency was also operating illegally from a government office, officials said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.