The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission says it has uncovered how some government workers cheated the system by putting fake names on payrolls and collecting several salaries at once.
The ICPC Chairman, Musa Aliyu, SAN, made the revelation on Thursday in Abuja at the 2026 Economic Confidential Lecture and National Spokespersons Award put together by Image Merchants Promotions Limited. As reported by The Punch, Aliyu said the commission’s investigation exposed serious abuse in the way public salaries are paid.
According to him, one official allegedly registered 14 relatives as government staff. “We caught someone who listed 14 members of his family on the payroll,” Aliyu said. “The man was even living in a government lodge while collecting money for all of them.”
He added that in another case, a person put his wife, daughter, son and other family members on the payroll and was drawing 13 different salaries.
To tackle the problem, the commission said it tracked down about 900 suspected ghost workers and published their names in newspapers, asking them to prove they were real employees.
“We spent one whole year looking into ghost workers,” Aliyu stated. “We now have the details of close to 900 of them, and their names have been made public.”
The ICPC boss explained how the fraud works. He said the fake names usually appear on the official payroll with emails, but when you check the bank details, the accounts belong to other people.
“You will see the name and email on the payroll,” he explained. “But the account number points to a different person entirely. That is their trick.”
Aliyu warned that the problem does not stop at salaries. He said ghost names can also lead to fake pension payments, housing loans, health insurance and other government benefits.
“If there are ghost workers, then there are also ghost pensions, ghost houses, ghost mortgages and ghost health plans,” he said.
The commission said its main goal now is to stop the fraud before it happens, instead of just going to court. Aliyu noted that in 2024, the ICPC recovered over N24 billion linked to fake pension payments.
“In 2024 alone, we got back more than N24bn from ghost pension payments,” he revealed.
He called for more use of technology and data to block leakages, and urged government agencies to work together to protect public money.
“Prevention is better than prosecution,” Aliyu said. “We cannot file charges for every single case. The priority is to make sure Nigerians benefit from government spending.”
Also speaking at the event, Yusha’u Shuaib, CEO of IMPR, said the lecture was organized to encourage openness, accountability and better communication in government.