CALABAR, CROSS RIVER– The Cross River State Government and the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) clashed on Monday over the supposed discovery of over 4,000 ghost employees and deep payroll irregularities within the city government system.
The heated conflict broke out throughout an emergency stakeholders’ conference in Calabar. The session was called by the Commissioner for City Government Affairs, Chief Victor-Felix Idem, to attend to an earlier protest by the NUT relating to unpaid incomes and stalled promos for primary school teachers.
BVN Audit Uncovers Huge Appointee and Instructor Scams
Commissioner Idem exposed that the state government exposed widespread payroll fraud after launching a verification exercise utilizing the Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) submitted by employees.
According to the Commissioner, the audit flagged over 2,000 instructors under the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and countless local government employees for sending void, fake, or suspicious BVNs.
He described that some BVNs were linked to completely various people or multiple names on the payroll, validating the operation of syndicated ghost workers.
Chief Victor-Felix Idem stated: “We found 1,200 fake BVNs in the LG councils, 526 in the primary health centres, 643 political appointees, and 2,000 in the State Universal Basic Education Board.
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The confirmation is aimed purely at sanitising the payroll and making sure only real employees receive state funds. We are not paying half-salaries; payments are managed directly by councils, and I challenge the NUT to produce payslips proving otherwise.”
NUT Demands Payment, Backs Verification
Reacting to the heavy accusations, the Cross River NUT Chairman, Comrade Gregory Olayi, safeguarded the teachers however expressed severe concern over the prolonged monetary distress of his members.
Olayi countered that a number of authentic teachers had actually not gotten a cent given that September 2025, regardless of fully complying with the government’s previous instructions to send their BVN and biometric files.
While he admitted that the union supports any audit implied to remove ghost workers and protect public funds, he warned that the absence of clear interaction from the ministry was penalizing innocent teachers.
Signing up with the panel, the Auditor-General for City Governments, Mr Bassey Eko, explained that a recent financial evaluation showed that many recent promotions were executed without appropriate fiscal clearance or monetary ramification assessments.
To resolve the inconsistency, Eko announced that SUBEB has actually been offered a strict due date to send detailed, validated records of all authorized promotions.
He cautioned that failure to supply these files would leave the state with no option but to immediately suspend wage payments to the unverified staff to prevent further bleeding of public funds.
The conference concluded with a shaky truce. The NUT Chairman agreed to go back to the ministry in the coming days with hard copy bank statements, work letters, and biometrics to clear authentic teachers caught in the automated sweep, while prompting the federal government to pay cleared workers immediately.