President Bola Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive forensic audit of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, and Federal Government institutions following revelations involving alleged fake agencies, ghost workers and weaknesses in government control systems.
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The President directed the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, to oversee and coordinate the exercise. The directive followed a resolution of the Federal Executive Council on August 19, 2026, arising from findings presented by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.
According to a statement issued on Friday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the exercise is intended to determine the nature and extent of weaknesses in government systems and how such loopholes may have been exploited.
The audit will be carried out in two broad components.
The first will focus on IPPIS and other government payroll, personnel, pension and financial-management platforms.
Investigators are expected to examine reported cases of ghost workers and payroll fraud, reconcile figures identified by the ICPC and determine how fictitious or otherwise ineligible persons may have been enrolled into government payroll systems.
The review will also scrutinise identity verification, biometric information, bank-account controls and access privileges within the payroll system.
Government will further examine how IPPIS interacts with other financial platforms, including the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, GIFMIS; Remita; the Treasury Single Account, TSA; and Sub-TSA accounts.
The exercise is expected to establish whether identified irregularities resulted from technical defects, weaknesses in administrative processes, inadequate segregation of duties or deliberate circumvention of existing controls.
The second component will extend to Federal Government ministries, departments, agencies, commissions, councils, parastatals and other government bodies.
Under this aspect of the exercise, the government will compile what it described as a definitive inventory of federal institutions and verify the legal basis for their existence.
The audit will also investigate how government entities obtain official recognition, budgetary provisions, correspondence privileges, office accommodation and access to government systems.
Governance structures, procurement procedures, internal audit mechanisms and oversight arrangements across the Federal Government will also come under scrutiny.
Tinubu directed that the audit be conducted with what the Presidency described as the highest standards of independence, professionalism and forensic integrity.
The audit team is to be granted access to relevant government systems and records and will work with the ICPC to ensure that the exercise complements ongoing investigations, prosecutions and asset-recovery efforts.
The Presidency said the exercise is expected to go beyond identifying individual instances of fraud or administrative failure.
It is also intended to strengthen government’s institutional architecture, close systemic loopholes, improve data verification and reconciliation and ensure that only legally constituted government entities and eligible personnel have access to public resources.
The directive comes amid heightened scrutiny of the processes through which purported government agencies have allegedly secured an appearance of official legitimacy.
In July, Tinubu ordered the ICPC to investigate the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, PFIPC, after the Presidency declared that the body had never been established by the Federal Government and had no legal basis in any law, presidential instrument or executive approval.
The ICPC investigation was directed to examine alleged forged appointment letters and government documents, the opening of bank accounts in the names of purported government bodies and the role of any public officers or private persons who may have facilitated the alleged scheme.
The latest forensic audit now substantially widens that inquiry by placing the Federal Government’s personnel, payroll, financial-management and institutional-recognition systems under comprehensive review.
The Presidency said the exercise forms part of Tinubu’s effort to strengthen transparency, fiscal governance, accountability and institutional integrity across the Federal Government.
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