Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who previously made public allegations of bribery against President Bola Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, has been transferred from the Nigeria Police Force’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) detention facility to the National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in Abuja, SaharaReporters has learnt.
Police sources familiar with the matter told SaharaReporters that Adeyemi spent two nights in IRT custody after his arrest in Osun State before he was moved to the NPF-NCCC detention facility in the Federal Capital Territory.
The sources, however, said the reasons for the transfer have not been disclosed by the Nigeria Police Force.
The police have yet to issue an official statement on Adeyemi’s arrest, the basis for his continued detention, or the status of any investigation.
Adeyemi’s transfer comes days after SaharaReporters reported that Gbajabiamila had filed a ₦15 billion defamation suit against him at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, over allegations that the presidential aide demanded a 48 per cent kickback from a ₦27.3 billion take-off grant approved for a federal agency.
In the suit, Gbajabiamila is seeking ₦10 billion in general damages, ₦5 billion in aggravated damages, ₦200 million as the cost of the action, and an order compelling Adeyemi to publish a full retraction and apology in five national newspapers. He is also asking the court to direct Adeyemi to pin the apology on all his social media platforms for 30 days.
The Chief of Staff, through his legal team, described the allegations as false, malicious and defamatory, insisting he had never met or communicated with Adeyemi or authorised anyone to demand or receive money on his behalf.
Court documents showed that Adeyemi had alleged during a press conference that he paid ₦400 million through an intermediary on behalf of Gbajabiamila and was later asked to pay an additional ₦200 million to secure presidential approvals.
Gbajabiamila denied the claims, maintaining that he had no personal, official or professional relationship with Adeyemi and had never demanded any financial benefit from him or anyone acting on his behalf.
The court filings also revealed that Adeyemi later admitted during an interview with content creator and social media influencer Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, that he had never met Gbajabiamila in person or independently verified the identity of the individual he believed to be the Chief of Staff, stating that all communications were conducted through the late Babatunde Tanimola.
According to the Chief of Staff’s witness statement, despite those admissions, Adeyemi repeated the allegations during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on July 13, 2026.
Gbajabiamila further disclosed in the suit that Adeyemi is already standing trial before the Federal High Court in Abuja in Charge No. FHC/ABJ/CR/652/2026: Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew & Others, over allegations of forgery, impersonation and operating a non-existent government agency.
Adeyemi had presented himself as the Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), an agency the Presidency has said does not exist.
Despite its non-existent status, the purported agency secured a ₦1.3 billion budget allocation and office space within the Federal Secretariat.
Adeyemi had accused Gbajabiamila of demanding a 48 per cent kickback from the agency’s proposed ₦27.3 billion take-off grant, allegations the Chief of Staff has consistently denied.
(SaharaReporters)
