11th January, 2026
The Osun State Government has reacted to allegations by a forensic audit firm, Sally Tibbot Consulting Limited, which accused the state of inserting thousands of ghost workers into its payroll, describing the claims as false and defamatory.
The consultant had, at a press conference held in Lagos on Friday, said that its forensic audit and payroll validation exercise uncovered 8,452 ghost workers allegedly paid over N13.7bn annually by the Osun State Government.
Reacting to the development, the Osun State Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, in a statement obtained in Osogbo, on Saturday, dismissed the allegations and accused the consultant of wrongly declaring legitimate workers as ghost workers.
Explaining how the state government is responding to the claims, Alimi said the reaction followed reports that the consultant allegedly declared as ghost workers the State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, his deputy, Kola Adewusi, the Secretary to the State Government, the Vice Chancellor of Osun State University, Prof. Clement Adebooye, and several other public servants.
He added that the government was responding through an official statement to clarify the matter, reject the allegations, and support affected workers who, he said, were preparing to seek legal redress over what they described as defamation.
Alimi said, “The workers affected included the Vice Chancellor of the Osun State University, staff of polytechnics, several top professors, Deans, provosts among others,” adding that “More than ten agencies alongside several tertiary institutions were not covered and workers in those agencies were declared ghost workers.”
The statement further read, “Osun public servants who were declared ghost workers by Sally Tibbot Limited have resolved to drag the company and the lead consultant to court for soiling and defaming their careers of several decades.
