A UK-based cab driver who left Nigeria two years ago still receives a salary every month from the Nigerian government as a junior official at a government agency.
Sabitu Adams, who now works as a taxi driver in the UK, had his name changed by a BBC report to protect his identity.
The taxi driver has yet to resign from his job in Nigeria.
Adams is one of the thousands of ghost workers in the Nigerian civil service.
Each year, the government carries out biometric verifications and publicizes the number of ghost workers they uncovered and the money saved as a result. Yet, no one is ever announced to have been arrested or prosecuted for the scam.
Last week, President Bola Tinubu directed that all civil servants drawing salaries from the government after relocating abroad should be made to refund the money.
Tinubu also ordered that the culprits’ supervisors and department heads be punished for aiding and abetting the fraud while they were in charge.
Adams told the BBC that he was not worried about the president’s directives because he earns better as a taxi driver in the UK.
The 36-year-old said: “When I heard about the president’s directive, I smiled because I know I am doing better here – and not worried.”
The cab driver said he did not resign “in case I choose to go back to my job after a few years.”
Adams was quoted as saying he had an arrangement with his boss in Nigeria who is a “relative”.
