The chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, (ICPC), Dr Musa Aliyu has revealed how a16-year was arrested in exam hall for sharing in the proceeds of fraud.
The young adult was arrested in connection with fraudulent cases of deductions of pension fund from non-existent workers otherwise referred to as ghost workers. The criminal had included his wife and son in the ghost pensioners’ payroll, until ICPC investigators unravelled their identities, including the boy’s
The commission also recovered over N20 billion in pension deductions from the salaries of ghost workers in 2024 and nipped the fraud in the bud, before it could benefit those who initiated it. Dr Musa Aliyu, also blame the society and people who make unrealistic demand of appointees. He explained this on Wednesday in Abuja at a breakfast meeting with some members of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.
He said the requests from people asking for help can be so overwhelming on public servants, such that he sometimes switches off his phone to avoid such demands that he “cannot afford”.
Aliyu said that the commission also arrested some people who specialised in inserting names of their cronies into the Federal Government payroll.
According to him, while deductions for workers’ pension are remitted to Pension Fund Administrators, the same cannot be said for ghost workers’ pension. “Any deduction made on ghost workers cannot go to any Pension Fund Administrator. It will be hanging; so that was the N20 billion recovered.
“We have been able to track and recover this amount of money and we also identified people that are inserting ghost workers in the system. We even discovered that somebody put his wife, his son and his in-law in the payroll. “He is 16 years, and we arrested him.
“These are some of the challenges that we are trying to tackle”, Dr Aliyu said.