Osun APC Demands EFCC Probe as Audit Firm Uncovers Alleged ₦13bn ‘Ghost Worker’ Goldmine Under Adeleke

The “State of Harmony” has been replaced by a state of high-stakes finger-pointing in Osun, as a forensic audit report alleging a massive ₦13.7 billion annual payroll fraud has triggered a political earthquake. On Friday, the All Progressives Congress (APC) officially called for the head of Governor Ademola Adeleke, demanding that anti-graft agencies storm the state house to investigate what they describe as “looting on an industrial scale.”

The controversy erupted following an explosive interview by Sa’adat Bakrin-Ottun, the CEO of Sally Tibbot Consulting the very firm Adeleke hired to clean up the state’s payroll. The audit firm claims that for over a year, the state has been bleeding billions to more than 8,400 “ghost workers.” The most staggering claim? A single bank account was reportedly caught receiving 962 different salaries every month, while another was credited with over 5,000 monthly payments.

The APC was quick to pounce on the report. “This is no longer about politics; it is about the systematic draining of Osun’s resources,” a party spokesperson stated. “When a consultant you hired tells the world that the fraud is still happening under your watch, you have a lot of explaining to do to the EFCC.”

Governor Adeleke’s administration, however, isn’t taking the hits lying down. In a fiery late-night response on Friday, the Commissioner for Information, Kolapo Alimi, branded the report “professional misconduct” and “APC-sponsored propaganda.” The government argues that the firm’s findings were so poorly researched that they even listed the Governor and his Deputy as ghost workers.

“We hired them to find ghosts, but they started calling our professors and senior doctors ‘unseen’ just to inflate their commission,” Alimi fumed. The state claims its own “homegrown” verification reduced the number of unverified staff to just over 1,300, far from the 15,000 personnel initially flagged by the firm.

As both sides gear up for the August 2026 gubernatorial showdown, the ₦13.7 billion question remains: is this a genuine cleanup effort gone wrong, or a coordinated cover-up? With the audit firm now planning to hand its files over to the EFCC, the people of Osun may finally get to see which side is telling the truth and which is just chasing ghosts.