Atiku Aide Calls for Gbajabiamila's Sack or Prosecution Over Alleged Appointment Scandal

Demola Olarenwaju, senior political assistant to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and now aide to the ADC presidential candidate, has called for the sacking or prosecution of Femi Gbajabiamila following allegations of an appointment-for-cash scandal that surfaced this week.

The controversy began when Adeniyi Matthew, who described himself as Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, claimed that Gbajabiamila demanded N27.4 billion from a take-off grant connected to his agency and allegedly collected N400 million through intermediaries in exchange for the appointment.

Those are serious, specific allegations. And then the Presidency responded in a way that probably created more questions than it answered.

Bayo Onanuga, the Presidency's spokesman, issued a rebuttal on Wednesday stating that the administration was unaware of the accuser and unaware of the alleged agency he claimed to head.

Think about that for a second.

If the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council does not exist, or is not recognised by the Presidency, then how did someone get appointed as its Director General? And if nobody in the Presidency knows who Adeniyi Matthew is, how did N400 million allegedly move through intermediaries to secure an appointment in an organisation the Presidency says it has never heard of?

The denial may be entirely accurate. Matthew could be a fraudster who invented a title and an agency and scammed his way into the budget under false pretences. That happens in Nigeria. It is not even particularly rare.

But that scenario does not actually let Gbajabiamila off the hook. If anything, it raises the exact question Olarenwaju is pushing on.

The opposition aide's argument, posted on X, was blunt and structured in a way that is harder to dismiss than it looks at first glance.

"By the watery presidential rebuttal, Gbajabiamila is either guilty of connivance or guilty of negligence, no two ways about it. If that fellow scammed himself into Nigeria's budget, then Gbajabiamila must be sacked for negligence and lack of due diligence. If the fellow connived with him in the scam as we suspect by evidence, Gbaja should be prosecuted. Either ways: this Thief of Staff must be punished," he wrote.

That last phrase is political rhetoric, clearly. But the binary he constructed before it is actually logical. Either the Chief of Staff was in on it, or someone conned their way into a government appointment and a government budget line without anyone at the top noticing. Neither option is particularly flattering.