The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has uncovered 908 ghost workers across no fewer than 50 federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). As a result, the anti-graft agency has exposed a major payroll fraud scheme that allegedly diverted hundreds of millions of naira in public funds.

Consequently, the commission recovered about ₦942 million linked to the fraudulent salary payments made to the fictitious workers throughout the scheme.

ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN), disclosed the findings while providing an update on the commission’s investigation into payroll fraud across federal government institutions. According to him, the discovery followed an investigation the commission launched in 2024 after it detected irregularities in pension payments.

“For the Ministry of Defence, we identified 19 people acting as fake workers,” Aliyu said, describing just one of the many cases investigators uncovered across the affected agencies.

SEE ALSO: Court Restrains EFCC from Probing Oyo State Finances, Calls Investigation a “Fishing Expedition”

Furthermore, the ICPC chairman revealed that the Federal Ministry of Electricity and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment each recorded 17 suspected fake workers, while the Federal Ministry of Health had 15. In addition, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation turned up 12 suspected ghost workers.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Police Force topped the list by a wide margin, with 570 names flagged during the investigation into irregularities in the federal payroll system. The National Water Resources Authority followed with 80 suspected ghost workers, and the Federal Ministry of Works recorded 56.

Other institutions implicated in the scheme include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, and the Federal Ministry of Interior. However, the commission did not disclose specific figures for the latter two offices.

According to Aliyu, the probe exposed serious weaknesses in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). As the investigation progressed, it uncovered cases in which senior government officials allegedly inserted the names of relatives and associates into the federal payroll, despite them not being legitimate employees, before diverting the salaries for personal gain.

Indeed, Aliyu cited one particularly striking case in which a suspect allegedly placed the names of his wife, son and mother-in-law on the payroll. At the same time, the same suspect allegedly collected the salaries of 12 other workers who did not exist.

“[These are] non-existent individuals whose names are placed on payrolls so that officials can siphon the corresponding salaries,” Aliyu explained, describing how the scheme operated across the affected MDAs.

Separately, the Federal High Court in Abuja has since ordered the final forfeiture of ₦941,994,079.86 recovered during the ICPC’s investigation into the 2024 IPPIS payroll scam, reinforcing the commission’s broader crackdown on the fraud.

Notably, this is not the first time Nigeria has grappled with ghost worker scandals. Previously, the federal government identified about 45,000 ghost workers after integrating payroll records with the Bank Verification Number (BVN) database, a move that significantly reduced fraud at the time. Nevertheless, earlier biometric verification efforts failed in some cases due to resistance from certain agencies, which allowed irregular payments to continue unchecked.

Therefore, to prevent further abuse, the government has since introduced new accountability measures that require Permanent Secretaries to approve payrolls directly, creating clear lines of responsibility and limiting the room for future manipulation.

For now, the ICPC says investigations and possible prosecutions connected to the 908 confirmed cases remain ongoing.