The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has granted an order for the permanent forfeiture of N941,994,079.86 to the Federal Government.
The funds are tied to suspected ghost workers discovered within the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.
Justice Binta Nyako delivered the ruling after considering an application presented by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.
In her judgment, Justice Nyako ruled: “That an Order is hereby made for the Final Forfeiture to the Federal Republic of Nigeria the Sum of N941,994,079.86 seized during investigation into the IPPIS Payroll scam in the year 2024.”
The details of the ruling were made public in a statement released on Saturday by Okor Odey, the spokesperson for the ICPC. According to Odey, the anti-graft agency’s probe exposed widespread payroll manipulation involving hundreds of fabricated public servants, leading investigators to trace a total of N941,994,079.86 to accounts tied to the illicit network.
The spokesperson noted that an initial assessment of the IPPIS in 2023 pointed to the presence of multiple ghost workers hidden across the payrolls of various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. Following those preliminary observations, President Bola Tinubu sanctioned a thorough audit of the government’s payroll framework.
Odey further explained that a collaborative investigation between the commission and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation in April 2025 successfully identified 587 suspected ghost workers operating on the IPPIS platform.
“Investigations revealed that fictitious IPPIS identities had been created for non-existent personnel across multiple MDAs, with salaries paid over extended periods into accounts belonging to individuals and companies,” Odey stated.
“In many cases, the account names did not correspond with those of the purported employees, while some accounts received multiple salary payments simultaneously.”
To halt the fraudulent drainage of public funds, the commission immediately enforced Post No Debit restrictions to lock down the targeted accounts holding the suspected proceeds of crime.
The ICPC listed several affected institutions, including the Nigeria Police Force, the Federal Ministries of Defence, Education, Agriculture and Rural Development, Works, Water Resources, and Interior. Other entities caught up in the fraudulent ring include the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, and five universities: the University of Benin, the University of Calabar, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the University of Maiduguri, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Odey shared that a subsequent verification exercise conducted in 2025 cleared 120 civil servants after validating their authentic employment status and identities.
However, 467 bank accounts remained tied to unverified individuals whose true identities could not be confirmed. The N941.9 million held across these 467 accounts has now been permanently handed over to the Federal Government by virtue of the judicial order.
The spokesperson also mentioned that the commission had previously published the names of 910 individuals suspected of benefiting from the payroll fraud scheme in two national newspapers on March 18, 2026.
The Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System serves as the centralized digital repository utilized by the Federal Government to supervise and process the records and remuneration of personnel within the federal public service.
