Abuja court orders N941.9m forfeiture in Nigerian civil service fraud
A Nigerian court has permanently seized N941.9 million stolen through a massive ghost worker scheme, exposing persistent governance flaws in the country's digitized public payroll system that undermine fiscal discipline.
A Nigerian federal court has ordered the permanent forfeiture of N941.99 million traced to a widespread ghost worker scheme operating within the government’s centralised payroll system. Justice Binta Nyako granted the final forfeiture order in Abuja following an ex parte application by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
The funds represent salaries paid to non-existent personnel across numerous federal ministries, departments and agencies. According to the ICPC, fictitious identities were created within the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, with payments routed to accounts where the names did not match the supposed employees. In some instances, single accounts received multiple salaries simultaneously.
The breadth of the implicated institutions points to a systemic vulnerability in public finance management. The affected entities span critical arms of the state, including the Nigeria Police Force, the Federal Ministries of Defence and Education, and major universities such as Ahmadu Bello University and the University of Benin. The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation was also caught up in the dragnet.
For investors and sovereign debt watchers, the scandal highlights the persistent challenge of fiscal leakages in Africa’s largest economy. The government originally rolled out the payroll system in 2007 specifically to eliminate ghost workers and improve personnel record accuracy. The fact that fraudsters successfully manipulated this very platform to extract nearly a billion naira raises questions about the integrity of public spending controls.
The ICPC’s prosecution counsel, Hamza Sani, presented banking details, personnel numbers and employee names to secure the ruling. “An Order is hereby made for the final forfeiture to the Federal Republic of Nigeria of the sum of N941,994,079.86 seized during the investigation into the IPPIS payroll scam in the year 2024,” Justice Nyako ruled.
The commission placed Post No Debit restrictions on the identified accounts between August and November 2024. It subsequently published the names of 910 suspected beneficiaries in the Daily Trust and The Nation on March 18, 2026, exhausting legal avenues before the assets were permanently transferred to the state.
