Former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has opened up on how the Federal Government used technology to clean up widespread fraud in its payroll system, revealing that about 45,000 “ghost workers” were uncovered through the Bank Verification Number (BVN) system.
Speaking at a governance dialogue in Lagos, Adeosun explained that the government’s wage bill was once its biggest expense, plagued by inefficiencies that earlier biometric efforts failed to resolve.
According to her, attempts to sanitise the payroll system had repeatedly hit a wall, especially due to resistance from agencies like the police and the military, which were unwilling to fully adopt centralised biometric verification.
To overcome this, her team took a different approach by leveraging the already existing BVN database instead of introducing a new system.
“We ran the federal payroll against the BVN database, and the result was shocking — we discovered 45,000 ghost workers,” she said.
She clarified, however, that many of the so-called ghost workers were not necessarily fictitious individuals, but cases of abuse and system loopholes.
“In some instances, it was one person’s BVN linked to multiple salaries. In others, people had died or moved on from service but were still receiving payments,” she explained.
To make the reforms more effective, Adeosun introduced a layer of accountability by requiring Permanent Secretaries to personally approve payrolls under their supervision, ensuring that responsibility could be traced.
Beyond the payroll reforms, she stressed the importance of data in policymaking, urging leaders to rely on facts rather than rhetoric.
“If you come armed with data, you can defend your decisions. Data is difficult to argue with,” she noted.
She also encouraged leaders to embrace modern tools like artificial intelligence and data systems, while emphasising that technology alone is not enough without the willpower to implement real change.
According to her, while tools like BVN and AI provide the means, strong leadership is what ultimately drives meaningful and lasting reform.
