Former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has revealed how the Federal Government used technology to tackle widespread payroll fraud, uncovering about 45,000 ghost workers through the Bank Verification Number (BVN) system.
Speaking at a policy dialogue in Lagos, she explained that the federal payroll used to be the government’s biggest expense, plagued by inefficiencies and fraud that earlier biometric systems couldn’t fix.
According to her, previous efforts failed largely because some paramilitary agencies, including the police and army, resisted centralised biometric verification. To overcome this, her team turned to the BVN database instead of introducing a new system.
By matching payroll records with BVN data, they discovered thousands of irregularities.
“The payroll was our biggest cost. When we ran it against the BVN database, we found 45,000 ghost workers,” she said.
Adeosun clarified that many of these cases were not sophisticated fraud schemes. In some instances, one person’s BVN was linked to multiple salaries. In others, payments were still being made to individuals who had died or left government service.
To make the reforms more effective, she introduced accountability by requiring Permanent Secretaries to personally sign off on payrolls. This ensured there was a clear line of responsibility and made it harder to hide fraudulent entries.
She also stressed the importance of using data to support government decisions, noting that evidence-based policies are harder to challenge.
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“If you’re just talking, people can ignore you. But when you have data, it’s difficult to argue against it,” she said.
Adeosun encouraged leaders to embrace modern tools like data analytics and artificial intelligence, but added that technology alone is not enough—strong leadership is needed to enforce real change.
She concluded that while the discovery of 45,000 ghost workers was a major success, lasting reform depends on backing such efforts with proper laws to prevent future reversals.
