President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive forensic audit of Federal Government payroll systems and agencies following disturbing findings of ghost workers, payroll fraud and “fake agencies”.
The President has directed the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, to coordinate the exercise, which is aimed at exposing loopholes in government’s systems and shutting down channels through which public funds may have been siphoned.
The directive followed the resolution of the Federal Executive Council on August 19, 2026, after findings by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) uncovered alleged ghost workers, irregular entities and other serious control failures across government.
The audit will place the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) under the microscope, alongside related personnel, pension and financial-management platforms.
Auditors are expected to reconcile cases identified by the ICPC, trace how fictitious or ineligible workers got onto the payroll and scrutinise identity, biometric and bank-account verification systems.
The probe will also examine the links between IPPIS and other government platforms, including GIFMIS, Remita, the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Sub-TSA, to determine whether the fraud resulted from system weaknesses, administrative failures, poor segregation of duties or deliberate manipulation.
But the government’s searchlight will not stop at payroll.
The second leg of the exercise will cover all Federal Government agencies, departments, commissions, councils, parastatals and other government bodies.
The audit team will compile a definitive list of government entities and verify the legal basis for their existence. It will also investigate how such bodies secure official recognition, budgetary allocations, government correspondence privileges, office facilities and access to government systems.
Procurement processes, internal audit structures, governance arrangements and oversight mechanisms will equally come under scrutiny.
The objective, according to the government, is to identify and plug the systemic loopholes that allow questionable entities and individuals to gain access to public resources.
Tinubu has ordered that the exercise be conducted with the highest standards of independence, professionalism and forensic integrity.
The audit team will have access to relevant government records and systems and will work with the ICPC to ensure that its findings complement ongoing investigations, prosecutions and recovery efforts.
The President expects the exercise to go beyond merely identifying ghost workers or individual cases of fraud.
Instead, the audit is expected to expose how the system was compromised, who exploited the loopholes and what must be done to prevent a recurrence.
The government says the exercise will ultimately strengthen data verification, improve reconciliation of public records, tighten accountability and ensure that only legitimate government agencies and eligible personnel have access to public funds.
The move is the latest attempt by the Tinubu administration to tighten fiscal controls and clean up the Federal Government’s institutional and payroll architecture.