Police lead as ICPC uncovers 908 suspected ghost workers, recovers N942m in payroll fraud investigation

The Nigerian Police has emerged as the federal institution with the highest number of suspected ghost workers uncovered by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC) in its ongoing national payroll verification exercise.

The anti-corruption agency revealed that investigations into payroll fraud across federal government agencies have so far uncovered 908 suspected ghost workers in at least 50 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), resulting in the recovery of about N942 million allegedly paid as fake wages.

ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN), disclosed this while speaking on the commission’s national payroll audit, according to a BBC Pidgin report published on Wednesday.

The commission explained that ghost workers are fictitious individuals who are fraudulently entered into the government’s payroll system to receive wages. He added that some public officials are suspected of inflating salaries by including relatives, friends or co-workers who are not legitimate government employees.

Aliyu revealed that investigators uncovered one particularly high-profile case involving a government official who allegedly put members of his immediate family on the payroll and also diverted the salaries of some genuine workers.

According to him, the suspect allegedly included the names of his wife, children and mother-in-law on the payroll in addition to collecting the salaries intended for the 12 workers.

Giving details of the findings, the ICPC chairman said that the Nigerian Police constituted the largest group of suspected ghost workers discovered during the exercise.

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“In this operation, we identified 570 people who we suspect were fake workers who received salaries without working,” he said.

The National Water Resources Authority ranked next, and the commission identified 80 suspected ghost workers.

“For this institution, we identified 80 names of salary recipients who were not workers at the institution,” said Aliyu.

The Federal Ministry of Works listed 56 suspected ghost workers, while 24 were identified at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Ministry of Defense is also on the list of affected institutions.

“For the Ministry of Defense, we identified 19 people who were acting as fake workers,” said the ICPC chairman.

The commission further listed the Federal Ministry of Electricity and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, with 17 suspected ghost workers each, while the Federal Ministry of Health listed 15 people.

The Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation was also mentioned, with 12 suspected ghost workers identified during the verification process.

Although the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Federal Ministry of the Interior were both named among the affected agencies, the ICPC did not reveal the number of suspected ghost workers allegedly found at the two companies.

The commission said its investigation into payroll fraud, which began in 2024, is still ongoing as efforts continue to eliminate payroll fraud from the Federal Government’s payroll system and hold those responsible accountable.