A forensic audit firm, SALLY TIBBOT Consulting Limited, has accused the Osun State Government of allegedly inserting 8,452 ghost workers into its payroll, resulting in an estimated annual financial loss of ₦13.72 billion.
The allegation was disclosed by the firm’s Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Sa’adat Bakrin-Ottun, through her legal counsel, Jiti Ogunye, during a press conference held on Friday at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Secretariat in Lagos.
Audit Uncovers Widespread Payroll Fraud
Bakrin-Ottun said the figures emerged from a comprehensive forensic audit and payroll validation exercise conducted for the Osun State Government, which she described as revealing deep-rooted payroll fraud across the state’s civil and public service system.
According to her, the firm was formally engaged by the state government following a proposal submitted on January 11, 2023, and was awarded the contract via a letter dated April 11, 2023. A formal agreement was subsequently signed on May 22, 2023, mandating SALLY TIBBOT to carry out a holistic staff verification and payroll re-engineering exercise across the civil service, local governments, education boards, state-owned tertiary institutions, and pensioners.
She said the exercise, conducted between June and December 2023, involved 125 personnel working both on-site and remotely, at a cost exceeding ₦600 million. Bakrin-Ottun described the assignment as one of the most extensive payroll audits ever undertaken in Osun State.
Payroll Figures Before and After Verification
Presenting the audit findings, Bakrin-Ottun stated that as of January 2023, Osun State’s payroll stood at ₦4.48 billion monthly for 37,456 staff and 17,918 pensioners. However, after verification, the payroll was reduced to ₦3.34 billion monthly, covering 29,004 verified staff and the same number of pensioners.
She said the reduction revealed that 8,452 ghost workers had been fraudulently added to the payroll, leading to a monthly loss of ₦1.14 billion and an annual loss of ₦13.72 billion to the state.
Payment Dispute and Call for Accountability
Bakrin-Ottun disclosed that the audit report and accompanying invoice were submitted to Governor Ademola Adeleke on June 27, 2024, during a private presentation in Lagos, and later publicly presented in Osogbo on July 10, 2024. She lamented that despite contractual provisions requiring payment within five working days, the state government had neither paid the firm nor implemented the report’s recommendations.
She also rejected claims by the state government that a subsequent re-verification exercise invalidated the firm’s findings, describing such claims as an afterthought aimed at avoiding payment and perpetuating payroll fraud. Bakrin-Ottun insisted that the contract made no provision for re-verification and accused the government of lacking the capacity to independently conduct such an exercise.
“We have no choice but to call on anti-corruption agencies to investigate this matter. Our findings are based on months of physical verification across the state. We are insisting on transparency, accountability, and payment for services duly rendered,” she said.
Efforts to obtain reactions from the Osun State Government were unsuccessful, as the Commissioner for Information, Kolapo Alimi, did not respond to calls, while the governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, promised a statement that had yet to be released as of the time of filing this report.