August 30 every year, is International Day of the Disappeared. A day created to draw global attention to the fate of individuals imprisoned, abducted, or detained in secret and under brutal conditions without their whereabouts being known.

This year the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) revealed that
about 1,500 people are currently being traced as missing in Yobe State.

As a country, this startling revelation should not be treated as another humanitarian statistic that will disappear from public attention after the commemorative day, rather to be seen as a national warning, which cuts across states, impacting on our national identity hence, demands urgent solutions.

Behind every one of those 1,500 names is a family waiting for an answer. There may be a mother who still expects her son to return, a child who does not know what happened to a parent, a husband or wife living in uncertainty, or an elderly parent who has spent years wondering whether a missing child is alive.
And Yobe is only part of the story.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is currently following about 17,000 active missing-person cases across Nigeria. The figure follows years of work on almost 24,000 cases.

This should embarrass a country that often speaks proudly about its population, territory and sovereignty but struggles to account for some of its own citizens.

The tragedy of missing persons is therefore not simply a humanitarian problem. It is a security, governance, justice, human-rights and national identity problem.

A national tragedy hiding behind statistics

The North-East understandably occupies much of the attention because of the Boko Haram insurgency, military operations, displacement and communal violence.

Since the escalation of the conflict in 2014, thousands of people have disappeared. At one point, the ICRC said nearly 22,000 Nigerians had been reported missing to it, making Nigeria its largest missing-person caseload worldwide at the time. About 60 per cent were minors when they disappeared.

But the problem is not confined to Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
Across the country, people disappear through kidnapping, banditry, communal conflicts, armed attacks, trafficking, migration, disasters, accidents, displacement, detention and family separation. In some communities, people abducted by criminals are killed without their bodies being recovered. Others escape but become separated from their families. Some children are moved across states or borders.

In many cases, there is no reliable central record. This means Nigeria may not even know the true size of its missing-person problem which is unacceptable.

A country that cannot determine where its citizens are, what happened to them, whether they are dead or alive, and where their remains are located has a serious institutional weakness.

The forgotten victims

The suffering does not end with the disappearance. Families lose breadwinners. Children may leave school. Property and bank accounts can become difficult to access. Wives may be unable to establish whether their husbands are alive or legally dead. Parents may spend their savings travelling from one police station, hospital, detention centre or morgue to another.

There is also what experts call “ambiguous loss”: the painful condition in which a family cannot properly mourn because it does not know whether its loved one is dead or alive.

The ICRC’s experience in Nigeria confirms this reality. Its work with families has included psychological, social, legal and other forms of support because the consequences of disappearance continue long after the initial event.

Nigeria must therefore stop treating missing persons as merely police cases.
They are families’ cases. They are humanitarian cases. They are justice cases. They are national cases.

Yobe’s example offers a starting point

The ICRC’s intervention in Yobe contains several lessons that Nigeria should take seriously.

The state has reportedly made progress through the National Mass Fatality Response Plan. The review of the state’s coroner’s law is also potentially important.

These measures matter because a person does not necessarily become “missing” only when abducted.

People also become missing because dead bodies are not properly identified.
An unidentified corpse in a morgue, an unmarked grave, a body hurriedly buried after a mass casualty incident, or remains recovered from a conflict zone can represent the unresolved disappearance of somebody’s father, mother, child or spouse.

The management of the dead is therefore part of the management of the missing. International practice recognises this. The ICRC says proper forensic and medico-legal systems are essential for identifying remains and clarifying the fate of missing persons.

This is where Nigeria must move from ad hoc humanitarian responses to a permanent national system.

We, at Disclosure Newspaper, therefore, recommend that the Nigerian government should do the following:

1. Establish a National Missing Persons Commission

Nigeria urgently needs a National Missing Persons Commission or an equally strong independent national mechanism.

Its job should not be to replace the police, military, immigration authorities, emergency agencies or courts. Rather, it should coordinate their information and ensure that no case disappears inside government bureaucracy.

The commission should maintain a secure national register containing, among other things:

• names and photographs of missing persons;
• date and place last seen;
• circumstances of disappearance;
• fingerprints and other identifying information where available;
• medical and dental records;
• DNA information obtained with informed consent;
• information about unidentified bodies;
• hospital and mortuary records;
• information from detention facilities;
• records from disaster sites;
• recovered remains and burial locations;
• cases involving children separated from families.

Such a system must have strict privacy safeguards. Information about missing persons is sensitive and must never become another avenue for exploitation, extortion or political persecution.

The ICRC itself stresses the importance of secure, trusted and properly managed information systems for missing-person cases.

2. Nigeria must build forensic capacity

This is another area where the country has failed for too long.
Nigeria needs properly funded forensic laboratories, trained forensic pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists, fingerprint experts, DNA specialists and disaster-victim identification teams.

The answer cannot be DNA alone. International best practice favours a multi-disciplinary identification process involving fingerprints, dental records, medical information, physical characteristics, personal belongings, circumstances of disappearance and DNA where appropriate.

Nigeria should establish standard procedures for collecting ante-mortem data from families and matching it with post-mortem data from unidentified remains.

The ICRC’s ante-mortem/post-mortem database model demonstrates how systematic management of forensic information can help connect missing people with unidentified remains.

The technology exists. What is missing is the political will, funding and institutional discipline to use it nationally.

3. Every police station should have a missing-person protocol

Another weakness is the absence of a consistently visible and easily accessible system for reporting disappearance.

A family should not have to know the right police officer, military commander, politician or humanitarian worker before a missing person’s case receives attention.

The police should have a standard national protocol.

Once a person is reported missing, basic information should be entered into a national system immediately. The alert should, where appropriate, be shared with relevant border, immigration, hospital, correctional, emergency and humanitarian authorities.

Early reporting is crucial because memories fade and evidence disappears.
International guidance recommends that information about the missing person and the circumstances of disappearance be collected as early and as accurately as possible.

4. Families must be treated as partners

Perhaps the most important lesson is that families must not be treated as troublesome people demanding government attention. They are partners in the search.

Families often possess information that investigators do not: photographs, medical histories, dental records, scars, clothing, personal habits, last telephone calls, friendships and circumstances surrounding disappearance.

They must therefore be involved in the search process and kept informed.

5. Government must also provide legal, psychological and economic support to families who have lost breadwinners.

Yobe’s accompaniment programme, which has already supported more than 50 families according to the report, is a useful model that deserves expansion.

But humanitarian organisations cannot permanently carry responsibilities that belong principally to the state.

6. Prevent disappearance, not merely tracing it

The ultimate objective must be prevention. Nigeria cannot keep searching for people after allowing the conditions that produce disappearance to continue. After all, the fundamental responsibility of government is the protection of lives and property.

Kidnapping must be fought more effectively. Rural communities need protection. Displacement camps require proper family registration and child-protection systems. Border controls must be strengthened without criminalising legitimate migration. Hospitals and mortuaries need reliable identification procedures.

Security agencies must also properly document detainees and persons transferred between facilities.

Where military or security operations result in deaths, there must be proper recovery, identification and documentation of bodies.

And where there are allegations of enforced disappearance, there must be independent investigation and accountability.

The greatest fear is not who wins, but whether Nigeria will remain united and peaceful after the votes are counted.
Nigeria is once again approaching a defining moment in its democratic journey. As the country moves towards the 2027 presidential election, political activities are gathering momentum, alliances are being formed and politicians are positioning themselves for what promises to be one of the most fiercely contested elections in the nation’s history.
But beneath the excitement of political campaigns lies a disturbing question: Are Nigerians prepared for the dangers that may accompany the 2027 election?
The fears are real, and they should not be dismissed as political pessimism.
Nigeria is already dealing with insecurity, economic hardship, unemployment, ethnic suspicion, religious tension and declining public confidence in political institutions. Recent reporting has identified insecurity and economic hardship among the major concerns likely to shape the election, while the political opposition remains deeply fragmented.
The first and perhaps greatest fear is electoral violence.
Elections in Nigeria have too often been treated as wars in which political opponents are regarded as enemies rather than fellow citizens. Political thuggery, intimidation, vote buying, destruction of campaign offices and attacks on supporters have historically threatened the credibility of elections.
The danger becomes greater when political rhetoric is allowed to portray victory as a matter of life and death.
No political office is worth the blood of a Nigerian.
The second fear is insecurity.
Across different parts of the country, Nigerians continue to confront terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, communal violence and other forms of criminality. Recent reports indicate that kidnapping and wider insecurity remain significant national problems.
An election cannot be regarded as free and fair if citizens are too frightened to travel to their polling units, farmers cannot leave their communities, or entire communities are prevented from participating because of threats from armed groups.
The third fear is religious and ethnic polarization.
Nigeria’s diversity should be a source of strength, yet politicians have repeatedly found it convenient to exploit ethnic and religious identities for electoral advantage. The controversy surrounding religious balancing in presidential politics remains particularly sensitive, and religious leaders themselves have recently recognized the need to prevent hate speech and religious intolerance ahead of the 2027 election.
This is dangerous.
A presidential election should not become a referendum on whether one religion, region or ethnic group should dominate another.
Nigeria belongs equally to the Christian, Muslim and traditional religious communities. It belongs equally to the North and the South, the East and the West. It belongs to the Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Fulani, Ijaw, Kanuri, Tiv, Nupe and hundreds of other ethnic communities.
Nobody should be made to feel like a stranger in his own country because of the candidate he supports.
Another major concern is economic desperation.
For millions of Nigerians, politics is no longer an abstract contest of manifestos. It is connected directly to the price of food, transportation, rent, electricity, education and healthcare.
Recent reporting on the 2027 contest points to widespread frustration over living costs and insecurity.
An economically desperate population can become vulnerable to political manipulation. A bag of rice, a small amount of money or a promise of employment may become more attractive than a carefully written manifesto when families are struggling to survive.
This is why political parties must resist the temptation to exploit poverty as an electoral weapon.
The fifth fear is the credibility of the electoral process itself.
If citizens believe that their votes will not count, they may lose interest in voting. If political parties believe that the electoral process is predetermined, they may seek victory through methods outside democratic institutions.
That would be disastrous.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), security agencies, political parties, civil society organizations and the judiciary therefore have an enormous responsibility. Every stage of the electoral process must be transparent, predictable and credible.
Technology must work. Electoral officials must be properly trained. Results must be transmitted and announced according to the law. Complaints must be addressed through lawful institutions rather than through violence.
And, above all, political parties must learn to accept defeat when they lose.
Democracy cannot survive if politicians believe they are entitled to victory.
There is also the fear of political over-concentration of power.
Recent reports suggest that the ruling APC has strengthened its political position considerably, while the opposition remains divided.
A strong governing party is not necessarily a threat to democracy. But democracy becomes vulnerable when political competition is weakened to the point where citizens begin to believe that only one political structure can realistically win elections.
The opposition, therefore, has a responsibility beyond defeating the ruling party. It must present Nigerians with credible alternatives, coherent policies and responsible leadership.
Equally, the ruling party must understand that political dominance should never become institutional dominance.
Nigeria’s democracy needs strong institutions, not strong political godfathers.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE POLITICAL CLASS
As the 2027 election approaches, politicians must lower the temperature of political discourse.
They must stop describing fellow Nigerians as enemies simply because they belong to another party.
They must stop using ethnic and religious sentiments as campaign weapons.
They must stop making reckless promises.
They must stop mobilizing young Nigerians for violence while their own children remain safely away from the battlefield.
And they must understand one fundamental truth:
After the election, Nigeria will still remain.
The winner will need the citizens who voted against him. The loser will still have a role to play in building the country. Political parties will continue to exist. Communities will remain neighbours.
Therefore, the objective of the 2027 election should not merely be to produce a president.
It should be to strengthen Nigeria.
THE ROLE OF THE CITIZEN
Nigerians also have responsibilities.
Citizens must refuse to be recruited into political violence. They must scrutinize manifestos rather than personalities. They must ask candidates how they intend to address insecurity, unemployment, inflation, education, healthcare, length.

When the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) recently announced that it had uncovered 908 fake workers and recovered ₦942 million from fraudulent salary payments, many Nigerians were shocked by the figures. Yet, beneath the headline lies a more disturbing truth: the ghost worker syndrome is only one branch of a much larger tree of institutional fraud that has flourished within public administration for decades.

The revelation that the Nigeria Police Force alone accounted for 570 suspected fake workers raises fundamental questions about governance, accountability and the credibility of Nigeria’s public payroll system. If those entrusted with enforcing the law can become the biggest victims—or beneficiaries—of payroll manipulation, then the problem is clearly systemic rather than accidental.

This is not merely about salaries paid to nonexistent employees. It is about a culture that has normalized fake agencies, phantom projects, fictitious procurements, abandoned policies and investigations that often generate headlines but rarely produce lasting justice.

Nigeria’s battle against ghost workers did not begin today. Successive governments have repeatedly promised to sanitize the public service.

During the civil service reforms of the 1970s and 1980s, audit exercises exposed thousands of fictitious names on payrolls. Similar discoveries emerged under the Structural Adjustment era, while democratic administrations after 1999 conducted verification exercises almost every four years. The introduction of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) was celebrated as the technological solution that would permanently eliminate payroll fraud.

Yet the ghosts have refused to disappear.

The latest ICPC findings prove that technology alone cannot defeat corruption when human beings control the data entering the system. Every fake worker represents forged documentation, compromised officials, weak supervision and deliberate collaboration across multiple offices.

The frightening implication is that ghost workers do not create themselves; they are created, protected and sustained by real people.

From ghost workers to ghost government

Payroll fraud is only the visible part of a broader governance crisis. Nigeria has gradually developed an ecosystem of what may be described as ghost government.

These include:

Ghost agencies that exist largely on paper or duplicate the functions of existing institutions.

Ghost policies announced with impressive ceremonies but never implemented.

Ghost procurements where contracts are awarded, funds released, but projects never materialize.

Ghost committees established to solve national problems before quietly disappearing.

Ghost investigations that produce dramatic hearings without convictions or institutional reforms.

The result is the same in every case: public money disappears while public confidence evaporates.

Recent years have witnessed parliamentary probes into questionable intervention councils, duplicated agencies, inflated procurement contracts and abandoned infrastructure. In many instances, investigative panels generated enormous publicity only for their reports to gather dust on official shelves. The absence of consequences encourages repetition.

Why the police topping the list matters

That the police recorded the highest number of suspected fake workers deserves special attention.

The Nigeria Police is one of Africa’s largest security institutions, with personnel spread across every state and local government. Its size makes payroll management complex, but complexity cannot become an excuse for weak accountability.

A distorted payroll has serious security implications. Money diverted to fictitious officers is money unavailable for genuine recruitment, modern equipment, insurance, housing and welfare for serving personnel. At a time when officers complain about poor working conditions and inadequate logistics, discovering hundreds of fake names on the payroll is both economically damaging and morally indefensible.

The same applies to ministries responsible for defence, health, works, power and foreign affairs. These are institutions directly connected to national development. Every naira stolen through payroll fraud reduces the capacity to deliver essential services.

The politics of promises

Nigeria has also perfected another expensive habit: announcing policies that rarely leave the podium.

Governments frequently unveil ambitious programmes with attractive names, glossy documents and impressive budgets. Citizens celebrate the launch, but implementation becomes inconsistent, funding disappears or political priorities change.

Whether in employment schemes, industrial development, housing initiatives or infrastructure programmes, the pattern is familiar. A new administration often abandons its predecessor’s projects, establishes another committee and introduces another policy without evaluating the previous one.

The country therefore accumulates policies instead of results.

A government that cannot distinguish between genuine workers and ghost employees is equally capable of budgeting for ghost programmes.

Procurement without projects

Public procurement remains one of the weakest links in governance.

International experience shows that payroll fraud and procurement fraud often share identical characteristics: forged records, inflated figures, collusion among officials and weak oversight.

Nigeria has witnessed countless examples of contracts fully or substantially paid for roads never completed, hospitals without equipment, schools existing only in budget documents and security projects abandoned after funds had been released.

The financial losses extend beyond money. Communities remain underdeveloped while citizens lose faith in government institutions.

Transparent procurement is therefore inseparable from payroll integrity. Both require reliable databases, independent verification and public access to information.

Why investigations fail

One of Nigeria’s greatest institutional weaknesses is the tendency to mistake investigation for justice.

Each scandal follows a predictable cycle

*Allegation emerges.

*Committee or investigative panel is announced.

*Public hearings dominate the media.

*Interim reports generate political controversy.

*The matter quietly fades away.

This cycle has repeated itself across procurement scandals, pension fraud, subsidy controversies and payroll manipulation. When investigations do not end in prosecution, asset recovery and institutional reform, they become public relations exercises rather than accountability mechanisms.

The ICPC deserves credit for recovering funds, but recovery alone is insufficient. Nigerians deserve to know who inserted the fake names, who approved the payments, who supervised the payroll and what disciplinary actions will follow.

Without individual accountability, another 908 ghost workers will eventually replace the current ones.

We, at Disclosure Newspaper, commend the ICPC for the uncovering of the payroll fraud and recovery of ₦942 million.

However, the true victory will come only when fake workers disappear alongside fake agencies, phantom procurements, abandoned policies and cosmetic investigations.

A nation cannot build a prosperous future on invisible people and imaginary projects. The ghosts haunting Nigeria’s government must finally be laid to rest—not by another investigative committee, but by courage, transparency and uncompromising justice.