In a shocking revelation, former Nigerian Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun has shed light on a massive phantom employee scandal that plagued the country's federal government. Speaking at the Citadel School of Government Dialogue series in Lagos, Adeosun explained how the government leveraged technology to uncover 45,000 ghost workers on the payroll. The integration of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) database was key to this discovery, which effectively eliminated large-scale payroll fraud.
At the time, the federal payroll was the government's largest expenditure, but it was also marred by inefficiencies that previous biometric efforts failed to resolve. Adeosun noted that these attempts often stalled due to resistance from paramilitary institutions like the Police and Army, who were hesitant to adopt centralized processes. To overcome this hurdle, her team cleverly used the existing BVN database instead of introducing a new biometric system.
According to Adeosun, the payroll was the government's biggest cost, and previous biometric efforts had fallen short due to the lack of cooperation from paramilitary groups. By using the BVN database, they were able to run the federal payroll and uncover a staggering 45,000 ghost workers. However, Adeosun clarified that the term "ghost worker" often concealed simpler issues tied to weak systems and individual exploitation rather than highly organized networks.
In many cases, the problem wasn't an elaborate scheme but rather one person's BVN linked to multiple salaries. It wasn't always a cartel, but rather ineff
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