Eniola Yekini
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has detected a massive ghost-worker and payroll manipulation scheme in which a government official allegedly enrolled 14 members of his family on the public payroll and collected their salaries.
Musa Aliyu, the ICPC chairman, disclosed this in Abuja while delivering the keynote address at the 2026 Economic Confidential Lecture and National Spokespersons Award organised by Image Merchants Promotions Limited.
Aliyu said the discovery was made during a year-long investigation by the commission into suspected ghost workers, payroll fraud and manipulation across government institutions.
According to him, investigators uncovered cases in which public officials allegedly exploited weaknesses in government payroll systems to insert relatives and other individuals as fictitious employees, allowing salaries and other employment-related benefits to be diverted.
The ICPC chairman said one of the cases involved an official who allegedly enrolled 14 members of his family on the government payroll and personally collected the salaries paid to them.
“We discovered that one person enrolled 14 members of his family. He lived in a religious hotel, a hotel at the public office, receiving salaries,” Aliyu said.
He disclosed that investigators also uncovered another case involving an individual who allegedly enrolled his wife, daughter, son and other relatives on the payroll, enabling him to receive salaries meant for 13 employees.
The ICPC boss said the cases demonstrated the increasingly sophisticated nature of payroll fraud in the public sector and the difficulty of detecting such schemes through conventional checks.
He explained that some perpetrators manipulate payroll databases in ways that make fictitious employees appear legitimate, including inserting names and email addresses that correspond with supposed government workers.
However, further checks often reveal that the bank accounts linked to those employees belong to completely different people.
“When they insert their names, you will see their name in the payroll. You will see their email. But when you check the account number, you will see the name of the person. So, that is how these things have been done,” he said.
Aliyu said the commission had so far identified about 900 suspected ghost workers as part of its investigations.
He explained that the names of the suspected ghost workers were published to give those affected an opportunity to demonstrate that they were genuine employees and clarify any discrepancies identified in the payroll system.
Aliyu warned that the financial consequences of ghost-worker arrangements could be significantly greater than the salaries paid to fictitious employees.
He explained that once a fictitious employee is established on a government payroll, the individual could also become entitled, on paper, to pension contributions, mortgage benefits, housing fund contributions and health insurance.
“Because, you know, once there is a ghost worker, there is ghost pension, there is ghost mortgage, there is ghost housing fund, there is ghost health insurance,” the ICPC chairman said.
The ICPC chairman further disclosed that the commission recovered more than N24 billion linked to ghost-worker pension payments in 2024.
The recovery, he said, reflected the broader financial implications of payroll fraud and the importance of identifying fraudulent beneficiaries before public resources are continually lost.
Aliyu said the commission was increasingly shifting its approach towards prevention, data analysis and early intervention, rather than relying exclusively on prosecution after public funds had already been diverted.
According to him, blocking avenues through which corruption occurs could deliver greater value to the country than waiting for fraudulent transactions to take place before initiating criminal proceedings.
“It is better for us to do that than to engage in filing criminal charges. How many charges can we file?” he said.
Aliyu stressed the need for government agencies to deploy technology, data analytics and more effective information-sharing systems to identify irregularities in public expenditure and payroll administration.
He said the ability to analyse large volumes of government data could help investigators identify unusual patterns, duplicate beneficiaries, inconsistencies between employee identities and bank accounts, and other indicators of payroll fraud.
He also emphasised the importance of reliable information and strategic communication in the fight against corruption, saying public confidence in government institutions depends largely on their ability to demonstrate transparency and accountability.