The world is still trying to catch its breath at the audacity of it. A 38-year-old man, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Mathew, managed to walk into the machinery of government and emerge as the Director-General of an agency that never truly existed. PFIPC had appointment letters that looked real, an office that was allocated, a budget line that found its way into the 2026 estimates, recruitment approval for 300 staff, meetings with MDAs, EFCC, and foreign missions, and even plans for a global summit.
It reads like a James Hadley Chase thriller, except it was not fiction. It was conceived, nurtured, and executed in real time, under the noses of watchdogs who were supposed to be awake. And then the plot twist: Adeyemi confessed that he borrowed nearly 400 million naira to “secure” the appointment. What that tells us is chilling. It was not only his brain that carried him. It was money. Money bought loyalty, bought obedience, bought compliance, bought the privilege to mimic the state and operate as CEO with the full swagger of legitimacy. He did not hack the system. He purchased it.
That is the diagnosis I keep returning to. Largesse, not law, is what keeps many of these structures alive. Largesse is what keeps a man in office after he has resigned. Largesse is what keeps ghost agencies breathing. Largesse is what allows crime to dress in a suit, take a seat at the table, and speak with the voice of authority.
Political scientists have long warned about this. Max Weber called it patrimonialism, the use of public office as private property, where loyalty is exchanged for material reward rather than for duty to the state. Robert Klitgaard’s famous formula for corruption, Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Accountability, fits this perfectly. When one man controls access, when discretion is absolute, and when no one is watching, money becomes the only currency that matters. Scholars of African bureaucracy, from Jean-François Bayart to Ekeh, have described this as the “politics of the belly” where the state becomes a feeding trough. And once people feed long enough, they begin to believe the trough belongs to them.
That is why the news now circulating about another leadership fight at the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) lands with a familiar sting. A legal practitioner, Barrister Danladi Azizi, has petitioned President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with a question that cuts to the bone: “By what authority did Agara return as NDE DG?” Silas Agara had resigned to pursue a senatorial bid in Nasarawa ahead of 2027, in line with the President’s directive to political appointees. He did not get the ticket. And then, quietly, he was back in the office. No public announcement. No letter of reappointment in the public domain. Azizi argues that a resignation, once accepted, terminates the appointment. That a DG’s seat is not a family inheritance. “Appointments into the office of Director-General of a federal agency are not family arrangements. They are statutory appointments that require due process,” he said. The presidency has not clarified. And so Nigerians are left to wonder: is this a return, a reinstatement, or a refusal to leave?
It is the same instinct we have seen elsewhere. The sit-tight syndrome. The belief that office confers entitlement that outlives tenure, resignation, or even performance. The Federal Character Commission (FCC) under Muheeba Farida Dankaka offers a recent example. She was reappointed amid controversy, only for the appointment to be reversed later. The message sent is dangerous: if you stay close enough to power and keep the patronage lines greased, you can come back, even after walking out.
Under President Tinubu, this pattern has repeated in different forms across MDAs. In some agencies, two people have claimed to be the legitimate head, each brandishing letters, court orders, or backing from different quarters. At the National Board for Technology Incubation, rival claimants paralyzed administration until the Presidency had to step in. At the National Health Insurance Authority, the Governing Council suspended Prof. Mohammed Nasir Sambo in 2023, the Federal Government reinstated him, and a quiet war broke out over who actually had the power to hire and fire. At NAHCON, the removal of the Chairman triggered legal battles over the legitimacy of the transition. Even at NDDC, board appointments and executive authority became contested terrain during the transition.
In another category, we have seen tenure extensions that sparked national debate. The Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, reached the statutory retirement age in 2024, but the National Assembly amended the Police Act to allow him to complete a four-year term. Critics called it a law made for one man. At Immigration, Comptroller-General Kemi Nandap got an extension to December 2026, defended as continuity but questioned as a departure from civil service norms. At Customs, Adewale Adeniyi received a six-month extension, reopening the argument about whether extensions should become routine. By contrast, at NIMC, the President directed the outgoing DG to proceed on pre-retirement leave and moved on, showing that adherence to process is possible. At CBN, the suspension of Godwin Emefiele and the appointment of a new governor created turbulence, but not dual claims.
And then there is the fresh drama at the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), President Tinubu appointed Abdulrazak Sa’ad Namdas as DG on June 26, 2025, to replace Dr. Dakorinama Alabo George, who had resigned to contest for governor in Rivers State. George now says he withdrew before the APC primaries and that his replacement was an error, that he never truly resigned. The Presidency, through Bayo Onanuga, has rejected that claim. Yet reports say George continues to act as DG and has even met with the Minister of Finance to push for fund releases. So BCDA now has two men walking its corridors, one with a new appointment letter, the other insisting the old one still breathes. It is the PFIPC story in reverse. Instead of a fake agency with a real man, we may have a real agency with two men claiming it.
What ties all of this together is what Adeyemi himself confessed. Money is the weapon. Money buys access, buys silence, buys the illusion of due process. Sociologists call this clientelism. Political economists call it state capture. Organizational scholars talk about “boundary violations” where the line between public duty and private interest collapses. In rehabilitation psychology we learn that repeated contact and trust create closeness. In governance, repeated access and largesse create ownership. When office holders believe they can fund their way in, and fund their way to stay, they begin to see resignation as optional and retirement as negotiable.
The consequence is not just administrative confusion. It is moral corrosion. It tells young Nigerians that merit is a rumor and that the state is for sale. It tells civil servants that rules are elastic. It tells investors and partners abroad that our institutions can be cloned. The Adeniyi Adeyemi case proves how far it can go, a fake DG negotiating with real agencies. The Agara and George cases prove how close it is to home, real agencies where real power is being tugged in two directions.
If there is a conclusion to draw, it is this. The fight is not only about who sits in the chair. It is about what keeps the chair warm. Until largesse stops being the primary tool for loyalty, authority, and survival, we will keep producing ghost agencies, fake CEOs, and sit-tight men who return from resignation like ghosts who refuse to be exorcised. Law, transparency, and enforcement must replace money as the currency of power. Otherwise, we will keep writing new chapters of a thriller we never asked for, and the ending will keep looking like the beginning.
Bagudu can be reached via bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com or 07034943575.
