The Nigeria Police Force has emerged as the federal institution with the highest number of suspected ghost workers uncovered in an ongoing payroll fraud investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.
The anti-graft agency said it identified 570 suspected ghost workers in the police payroll, representing nearly 63 per cent of the 908 questionable names discovered across at least 50 federal ministries, departments and agencies.
ICPC Chairman, Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN), disclosed the findings on Wednesday while speaking on the commission’s nationwide payroll fraud investigation, according to a BBC Pidgin report.
Aliyu said the commission had so far recovered about N942 million allegedly paid as fraudulent salaries as investigations into the payroll scam continue.
According to him, the police recorded by far the highest number of suspected ghost workers among all the affected institutions.
“For this operation, we identified 570 people whom we suspect are among the fake workers collecting salaries without working,” the ICPC chairman said.
The commission explained that ghost workers are fictitious names fraudulently inserted into government payrolls to siphon public funds. In some cases, serving officials allegedly add relatives, associates or non-existent employees to salary platforms and divert the wages.
Aliyu cited one case under investigation in which a suspect allegedly placed the names of his wife, son and mother-in-law on the government payroll while simultaneously collecting the salaries of 12 genuine workers.
Beyond the police, the National Water Resources Authority ranked second with 80 suspected ghost workers, followed by the Federal Ministry of Works with 56.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had 24 suspected ghost workers, while the Ministry of Defence recorded 19.
The Federal Ministries of Electricity and Industry, Trade and Investment each had 17 suspected ghost workers, while the Federal Ministry of Health recorded 15 and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had 12.
The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Federal Ministry of Interior were also listed among agencies affected by the payroll fraud, although the ICPC did not disclose the number of suspected ghost workers linked to the two institutions.
The commission said the payroll verification exercise, which began in 2024, is still ongoing, indicating that more recoveries and possible prosecutions could follow as investigations progress.
The ICPC has yet to announce criminal charges against any of the affected institutions or individuals, while the Nigeria Police Force had not publicly responded to the commission’s claims as of the time of filing this report.
