Mirian Gom 
Osun Governor, Ademola Adeleke
OSUN, Nigeria – The Osun State Government has dismissed allegations that it padded its payroll with thousands of ghost workers, describing claims by Sally Tibbot Consulting Limited as false, defamatory and misleading.
The forensic audit firm alleges that its payroll validation exercise uncovered 8,452 ghost workers allegedly costing the state more than ₦13.7 billion annually.
In a statement issued on Saturday in Osogbo, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, rejects the claims, accusing the consultant of wrongly classifying legitimate public servants as ghost workers.
Alimi says the firm allegedly listed Governor Ademola Adeleke, Deputy Governor Kola Adewusi, Secretary to the State Government Teslim Igbalaye, and the Vice-Chancellor of Osun State University, Prof Clement Adebooye, among supposed ghost workers.
“The affected workers include professors, deans, provosts, polytechnic staff and officials across more than ten agencies that were not even covered in the audit,” Alimi says.
He adds that many of those listed had participated in verification exercises and were duly captured as genuine employees.
According to the commissioner, affected workers have resolved to seek legal redress against the firm and its lead consultant for defamation and character assassination.
“The Lagos press briefing was a subtle blackmail to force a fraudulent audit report on the state,” Alimi alleges, adding that a government-led re-verification exercise exposed “extensive inflation” in the reported figures.
While reaffirming the government’s commitment to cleaning up the payroll, Alimi insists that Osun “cannot in good conscience remove legitimate workers or submit to an audit report capable of defrauding the state.”
Previous ghost worker claims in Osun have generated political and labour tensions, with unions rejecting similar allegations in past audits.
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Edino Chubiyo Cornelius 
Oluwafunbi Bello 
Hussaini Ibrahim