The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the AGF, IGP, and Nigeria Police Force to grant Adeniyi Adeyemi, the man at the center of the alleged fake PFIPC scandal, unimpeded access to lawyers of his choosing “at all reasonable hours,” even as he remains in detention and bigger questions about his freedom stay unresolved.
Justice Obiora Egwatu handed down the order on Thursday while ruling on a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed ex parte on Adeyemi’s behalf by his lawyer, M.B. Abdulazeez, Esq.
The application, one of several fronts on which Adeyemi’s legal team is now fighting, sought to shield him from what his lawyers characterized as potential coercion while in custody and to secure his release altogether.
Adeyemi’s legal troubles are unfolding on parallel tracks before the same court. In a separate criminal matter, Justice Umar Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja had, back in July, issued a warrant for Adeyemi’s arrest after he failed to appear for scheduled proceedings.
The case has since been fixed for arraignment on September 30. Adeyemi was picked up by law enforcement operatives the same day the warrant was issued.
It is against the backdrop of that ongoing detention that Abdulazeez, appearing before Justice Egwatu, adopted his motion ex parte and pressed the six reliefs contained in a filing signed by Ademola Oyedokun, Esq.
The first four reliefs in the application centered on Adeyemi’s bid for bail, his immediate release from custody, and a request that he be allowed medical attention from health practitioners of his own choosing, citing what his team described as his deteriorating health while in detention.
The final two reliefs went further, seeking to insulate Adeyemi from any interrogation while in custody. Relief 5 asked the court for:
“AN ORDER that, for so long as the Applicant remains in custody, the Respondents (including Assistant IGP, NFC, NCCC), whether by themselves, their officers, servants, agents, or privies, or any agency of the Federal Government whatsoever, be restrained from interrogating the Applicant or requiring him to make, adopt, or sign any statement, save in the presence of a legal practitioner of his own choosing.”
“AN ORDER that, for so long as the Applicant remains in custody, the Respondents do permit the Applicant unimpeded access to legal practitioners of his own choosing at all reasonable hours.”
In support of the application, Adeyemi’s elder brother, Adeniyi Adebola, deposed to an affidavit explaining that his sibling had been unable to personally attend before a Commissioner for Oaths, a routine step in preparing sworn court documents, precisely because he remains in detention.
After hearing submissions from Abdulazeez and reviewing the court processes, Justice Egwatu declined, for now, to grant the bail request, the release order, the medical-attention relief, or Relief 5. The judge held that those far-reaching orders could not properly be made without first hearing from the respondents, the AGF, the IGP, and the police.
The one relief the court did grant outright was Relief 6: the order compelling the AGF and the police to ensure Adeyemi has unfettered access to counsel of his choosing throughout his detention.
Justice Egwatu went on to issue the respondents a 72-hour ultimatum to show cause why the remaining reliefs should not also be granted, fixing September 9 as the date for that show-cause hearing.
The civil ruling comes even as the Nigeria Police Force presses ahead with a separate criminal prosecution against Adeyemi. In a charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/562/2025 before Justice Umar, police named Adeyemi alongside two others identified only as “Femi Surname Unknown” and “Anu Surname Unknown” as the first, second, and third defendants, respectively, over allegations of forgery and impersonation tied to the purported PFIPC.
Court filings indicate the prosecution intends to call a substantial witness list, among them the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, along with officials from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, serving police officers, civil servants, and individuals said to have been connected to the alleged agency’s operations.
Hotel operators, a clergyman, and people who reportedly worked alongside Adeyemi at the outfit are also expected to be called to testify.
Investigators allege that Adeyemi ran the purported council out of the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja prior to his arrest, a detail that has fuelled public unease over how a supposedly bogus federal body could have operated, apparently unchallenged, from within a seat of government.
The criminal case did not emerge in a vacuum. It follows weeks of public back-and-forth after the presidency moved to deny that the PFIPC ever existed as a legitimate government body, a denial Adeyemi publicly challenged.
At a press briefing, Adeyemi called for an independent investigation into the matter and alleged that a total of ₦400 million had been paid out through intermediaries connected to the purported council, with a further ₦200 million said to have been demanded.
Those allegations, it should be stressed, have not been substantiated and notably have not yet been tested or presented as evidence before any court.
With the show-cause hearing now set for September 9 and the criminal arraignment before Justice Umar fixed for September 30, Adeyemi’s fate, both his immediate liberty and the broader question of the PFIPC’s true nature, is likely to play out on two court calendars in the weeks ahead.
For now, the only certainty is procedural: whatever else remains contested, his lawyers may see him.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
A Federal High Court has ordered that Adeniyi Adeyemi, accused of running a fake presidential agency (PFIPC) out of the Federal Secretariat, must be allowed unrestricted access to his own lawyers while in custody.
But that’s the only relief granted so far; his bids for bail, release, and medical care were deferred, with authorities given until September 9 to explain why those should not also be granted.
Meanwhile, the underlying criminal case alleging forgery and impersonation, with the President’s Chief of Staff among the witnesses, proceeds separately, with arraignment set for September 30. Crucially, Adeyemi’s own claims of ₦600 million in payments tied to the scandal remain unproven and untested in court.
