By Ebuka Ukoh

This piece highlights the systemic barriers – physical, attitudinal, and institutional – that prevent persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria from fully participating in society. Observing the global significance of July 26, which marks the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the calls for a shift in perspective: moving away from viewing disability as an object of charity toward recognising it as a matter of fundamental human rights and citizenship.

The piece emphasises the urgent need for robust implementation of Nigeria’s Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018 (actually signed in 209), and urges the government, religious institutions, and the general public to dismantle barriers and foster an inclusive environment where all Nigerians can flourish.

July 26, being my birthday, has always been a day of personal celebration. It is a day to reflect on life, purpose, and gratitude; it also carries a profound global meaning: every year on this day, the world marks National Disability Independence Day, commemorating the 1990 signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The ADA was more than a legal reform; it was a declaration that disability should never diminish a person’s dignity, rights, or opportunities. It affirmed a simple truth: barriers created by society, not disability itself, are what truly exclude people from community life.

As I celebrate another year, my thoughts turn not to my own voice, but to the voices we too often fail to hear. The World Health Organisation’s 2011 report estimated that approximately 25 million Nigerians live with some form of disability.

They are our students navigating inaccessible schools, entrepreneurs building businesses in environments designed without them in mind, job seekers overlooked despite their qualifications, and commuters unable to safely access public transport.

Perhaps the most painful injustice is that this exclusion is often invisible. We pass people every day without questioning whether our schools, offices, worship centres, and public buildings are actually accessible.

We design policies without consulting those they impact, and we speak of inclusion while leaving many outside the conversation. A society reveals its moral character, not by how it treats the powerful, but by how it treats those who are most easily ignored.

PWDs are not objects of charity; they are citizens. Yet, unequal citizenship remains the reality: it is arriving at a polling unit to find no accessible entrance; it is earning a degree only to be rejected by employers who mistake disability for inability; it is struggling to navigate public transport or worship services that were designed with exclusionary assumptions. These are not mere inconveniences; they are structural barriers that prevent fellow Nigerians from participating in the so-called national life of their own country.

These folks are handiCAP ABLE, not handicapped.

The language we use also matters. Too often, disability is defined only by limitation. Yet, across Nigeria, PWDs are teachers, lawyers, artists, athletes, and community leaders. Their contributions are not “exceptions” to disability; they are powerful expressions of human potential when opportunity is allowed to flourish.

What if we stopped seeing disability as the absence of ability and began recognising that those who experience the world differently often develop unique resilience and problem-solving skills? Inclusion is not an act of generosity; it is an act of justice.

Nigeria has taken a significant step forward with the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018 (signed by PMB in 2019). This law formally recognises that accessibility and equal opportunity are matters of right.

Yet, legislation achieves its purpose only when it transforms everyday life. It must be visible in the way schools are built, employers recruit, architects design spaces, and the media tells our stories.

Faith communities also hold a unique responsibility. In Nigeria, churches and mosques are among our most trusted institutions. Yet, too often, we celebrate miracles while neglecting accessibility. We pray for healing but fail to remove the physical and attitudinal barriers that prevent PWDs from joining our choirs, serving in leadership, or participating in the ordinary life of the congregation. A truly welcoming community does not ask whether PWDs belong; it asks whether inclusion is woven into its very fabric.

The government must continue to strengthen the enforcement of disability rights, and each of us must examine our own assumptions.

Inclusion benefits us all; it makes a country easier to navigate for older adults, parents with young children, and anyone recovering from injury. Accessibility is not a favour to a minority; it is an investment in the dignity of every human being.

On this birthday, I ask for no special gift. I ask only that we become a nation where no Nigerian is made invisible because they experience the world differently, for the measure of our humanity is not how we treat the strongest among us. It is whether those most easily overlooked know, without question, that they belong.

Mr Ukoh, a PhD student and coauthor of Built By The Ancestors, writes from his base in New York, the United States.

By Prince Charles Dickson, PhD

Our ancestors did not endure wars, disease, displacement and impossible journeys merely to produce citizens with the attention span of a disappearing Instagram story. The 4,094 ancestral positions behind each of us represent accumulated survival.

We owe that inheritance more than temporary indignation.

To produce one living Nigerian today, biology required a spectacular ancestral relay race.

Two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so forth, doubling backward until the arithmetic reaches 2,048 ancestors in the eleventh preceding generation. Added together, the listed generations total 4,094 ancestral positions.

Strictly speaking, the popular calculation describes eleven generations, not twelve, and probably stretches across roughly three centuries rather than one hundred years. Pedigree collapse also means some ancestors may occupy more than one position in the family tree. Still, the moral survives the mathematics: thousands of human journeys, migrations, quarrels, reconciliations, harvests, heartbreaks and stubborn acts of hope converged so that each of us could arrive here.

Imagine surviving all that history only for your descendant to inherit a country where an institution can allegedly appear from bureaucratic mist, acquire official-looking stationery, enter government offices, obtain accounting recognition, open Central Bank accounts and stroll into the national budget wearing a presidential name tag.

That is the dark comedy of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, variously described in official and media accounts as PFIPC, PEAC/PFIPC and, in some reports, the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council. The Presidency insists that the body was never legally created, possessed no presidential approval and had no foundation in any law or executive instrument.

Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who presented himself as its Director-General, has been charged with offences including forgery, impersonation and operating a fictitious government agency. He denies wrongdoing and maintains that the courts should determine the truth.

Ordinarily, that should be the whole story: somebody allegedly forged documents, the security agencies caught him, and the judicial machinery began turning.

But Nigeria will never serve you an ordinary meal.

Documents reviewed by investigators and journalists indicate that correspondence associated with the organisation moved through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Office of the Accountant-General and the Central Bank.

The organisation reportedly received self-accounting status, a budget code, office accommodation and two foreign-currency accounts. It interacted with senior officials and members of the diplomatic community before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sought clarification about its legitimacy.

This transforms the matter from a possible case of one audacious impersonator into a national audit of institutional susceptibility. The central question is not merely, “Who is Adeyemi?” It is also, “What kind of administrative system can be persuaded to recognise an organisation that, according to the Presidency, never existed?”

A ghost may frighten one civil servant. But when the ghost obtains office space, a budget code and domiciliary accounts, it has stopped haunting the building. It has joined the civil service.

PFIPC reportedly appeared alongside the Presidential Economic Advisory Council in the 2026 Appropriation Act, with about ₦1.3 billion allocated to the disputed entity. The Budget Office has since stated that although the appropriation appeared in the budget, no money was released because expenditure controls prevented the allocation from becoming actual public spending. That distinction matters.

Appropriation is legal permission to spend, not proof that spending occurred. Yet the absence of financial loss does not erase the governance failure that allowed a questionable body to travel so far through the state’s verification corridors.

A burglar who reaches the vault but finds the final lock intact has not proved that the entire security system is excellent. He has proved that the last padlock deserves a medal while the other doors require urgent counselling.

The controversy widened when Adeyemi accused the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, of corruption, bribery and involvement in the disputed council. Gbajabiamila has emphatically denied the allegations and instituted a ₦15 billion defamation action. Adeyemi has also demanded an independent investigation.

These claims remain allegations and should not be converted into conclusions by social-media enthusiasm, partisan loyalty or the Nigerian habit of appointing ourselves judge immediately after reading three WhatsApp broadcasts.

President Bola Tinubu directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to investigate the entire affair and submit a report within thirty days. Gbajabiamila subsequently appeared before the commission.

The House of Representatives also constituted an ad hoc committee, although its hearings have already encountered the familiar national sport of invited officials sending representatives, explanations or atmospheric silence. The Senate, meanwhile, twice declined to open a separate investigation, citing the pending court case and the ICPC inquiry.

Every relevant institution deserves a fair hearing. But fairness must not become fog. The investigation must establish who prepared the documents, who authenticated them, who authorised the budget code, who initiated the appropriation, who processed the bank accounts, who allocated or permitted the use of office space, who recruited personnel, who received warnings and why public clarification took so long.

This is where Nigeria’s most dependable accomplice enters: collective amnesia.

Our scandals arrive as blockbuster cinema. For seventy-two hours, everyone becomes a forensic accountant. Television panels ignite.

Hashtags reproduce. Party spokespersons perform verbal acrobatics. Then another drama lands: a minister quarrels with a governor, a celebrity marries during breakfast and divorces before evening, or somebody’s microphone develops political opinions. The previous scandal is quietly escorted into the national warehouse of unfinished outrage.

We confuse attention with accountability. They are not twins.

Attention asks, “Have you heard?”

Accountability asks, “What happened next?”

Democratic vigilance requires institutional memory: published timelines, accessible documents, named responsible officers, fixed reporting deadlines and consequences for obstruction, negligence or wrongdoing. Citizens and journalists should track the ICPC’s thirty-day deadline, the House committee’s findings, the criminal proceedings, the defamation case and every administrative reform promised afterward.

Civil-society organisations should maintain a public PFIPC accountability dashboard until each question is answered.

The government should establish a single authoritative digital register of all federal ministries, departments, agencies, councils and presidential committees.

Every entity should have a verifiable establishment instrument, leadership record, budget code, supervising authority and official domain. No agency should receive accounting status, office accommodation, recruitment approval or a bank account until its existence has been digitally authenticated across the relevant institutions. The #FixPolitics Initiative has similarly called for such a unified register.

Our ancestors did not endure wars, disease, displacement and impossible journeys merely to produce citizens with the attention span of a disappearing Instagram story. The 4,094 ancestral positions behind each of us represent accumulated survival. We owe that inheritance more than temporary indignation.

PFIPC must not become another national folktale beginning with “Once upon a scandal” and ending with “Nigerians moved on.”

This time, we must remain at the scene after the cameras leave. We must demand the reports, examine the evidence, distinguish accusation from proof, punish wrongdoing, correct institutional failures and record the lessons.

Otherwise, our ancestors may be forced to constitute their own ad hoc committee. And judging by their numerical strength, quorum will not be a problem.  May Nigeria win.

 By Nafisat Bello

“Ghosts are supposed to haunt abandoned buildings, not government payrolls. They do not possess bank accounts, collect monthly salaries, pay taxes or operate ATMs. Yet, in Nigeria, our ghosts have become some of the country’s highest-paid ‘public servants.

’”

Nothing better illustrates the tragedy of Nigeria’s public finance than the persistent menace of ghost workers.

It is perhaps one of the most absurd forms of corruption ever conceived — a crime in which people who neither exist nor render any service continue to receive salaries month after month and year after year, while hospitals lack essential equipment, schools struggle for funding, and genuine civil servants wait endlessly for promotions and improved welfare.

The recent final forfeiture of ₦941.9 million recovered by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) from an Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) fraud is therefore far more than another anti-corruption success story. It is a sobering reminder that Nigeria’s greatest fiscal enemies are not invisible ghosts, but real people exploiting institutional weaknesses for personal gain.

The funds were recovered during the ICPC’s investigation into payroll fraud within the IPPIS. On 13 July, Justice Binta Fatima Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the permanent forfeiture of the money to the Federal Government, concluding one of the Commission’s most significant payroll fraud investigations in recent years.

Court documents show that the investigation traced suspicious payroll-related transactions to 909 bank accounts spread across 17 financial institutions, including Access Bank, First Bank, GTBank, UBA, Zenith Bank, Polaris Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Fidelity Bank, Wema Bank, Jaiz Bank, Union Bank, Unity Bank, FCMB, Sterling Bank, Ecobank, Keystone Bank, and NPF Microfinance Bank.

Investigators also discovered that several suspects operated multiple accounts across different banks — a pattern commonly associated with money laundering and the layering of illicit funds. Those implicated reportedly came from diverse professional backgrounds, including individuals linked to the security sector.

The funds, initially preserved in the ICPC Recovery Account, were found to be proceeds of unlawful activities involving payroll manipulation, ghost-worker schemes, and unauthorised salary payments under the IPPIS platform.

While the forfeiture marks a major legal victory, it also raises deeper questions about accountability, institutional integrity, and the resilience of Nigeria’s public financial management systems.

The uncomfortable truth is that ghost workers do not create themselves.

Behind every fictitious employee is a network of real people — officials who create fake identities, supervisors who approve payroll entries, administrators who process payments, accountants who ignore obvious irregularities, and beneficiaries who quietly withdraw salaries for jobs that are never performed.

Ghost workers are not software errors. They are products of organised human collusion.

That is why payroll fraud should never be dismissed as a mere administrative lapse. It is organised financial crime perpetrated from within institutions entrusted with safeguarding public resources.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of this case is not the amount recovered but the sheer scale of the financial network uncovered.

How did suspicious transactions involving 909 accounts across numerous financial institutions continue for so long without triggering stronger compliance mechanisms? Why were unusual transaction patterns apparently not detected much earlier? Could more robust anti-money laundering controls, transaction monitoring systems, and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) procedures have disrupted the scheme before it reached this magnitude?

These questions should not be interpreted as accusations against the banks involved. Processing transactions does not automatically imply complicity.

However, financial institutions occupy a critical position in Nigeria’s anti-corruption architecture. They are expected to detect suspicious financial activities, report unusual transactions, and maintain compliance systems capable of identifying abnormal patterns before they become national scandals.

If a payroll fraud investigation ultimately involved hundreds of accounts spread across multiple banks, then the financial sector must also examine whether its monitoring systems are sufficiently proactive rather than merely reactive.

Fighting corruption is not the exclusive responsibility of anti-graft agencies. It is a shared obligation involving regulators, financial institutions, auditors, public institutions, and every stakeholder entrusted with protecting public resources.

Ironically, one of the greatest lessons from this scandal is that the very platform established to eliminate payroll fraud became the target of one of the country’s largest payroll manipulation schemes.

The Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System was introduced to centralise salary administration, eliminate ghost workers, and improve transparency in government payroll management. To a considerable extent, it has delivered significant savings over the years.

Yet this investigation demonstrates a timeless reality: technology can close loopholes, but it cannot eliminate corruption where individuals retain the ability to manipulate systems, abuse privileged access, or collude across institutions.

Digital platforms strengthen governance, but they cannot replace integrity.

As corruption evolves, oversight must evolve even faster.

Nigeria often celebrates recovered assets with understandable enthusiasm. Every forfeiture order, every confiscated property, and every recovered account is presented as evidence that anti-corruption agencies are making progress.

Indeed, recovery matters. It reassures citizens that stolen public funds can be traced and reclaimed, while sending a powerful message that crime does not always pay.

But recovery should never become the principal measure of success.

The real benchmark is how much public money never gets stolen in the first place.

Recovering ₦941.9 million is commendable. Preventing its diversion altogether would have been far more valuable.

Every naira stolen creates immediate consequences that cannot simply be reversed by a later court order. Delayed salaries, abandoned infrastructure projects, underfunded hospitals, overcrowded classrooms, and declining public services all represent the hidden costs of corruption — costs citizens bear long before any stolen funds are eventually recovered.

Justice delayed may still be justice. Public service delayed is often irreversible.

The judgment also highlights the indispensable role of the judiciary in the fight against corruption. Investigations alone do not recover public funds; asset recovery ultimately depends on judicial scrutiny and due process.

By granting the final forfeiture order after carefully evaluating the ICPC’s evidence, the Federal High Court reaffirmed an important principle: recovered assets must become public property only through lawful judicial processes.

That strengthens confidence in Nigeria’s justice system while protecting legitimate property rights from arbitrary state action.

The ICPC deserves commendation for painstakingly tracing illicit funds across hundreds of accounts and securing judicial approval for their forfeiture. Such investigations demand sophisticated financial analysis, inter-agency collaboration, and meticulous legal work.

Yet Nigerians deserve more than celebrated recoveries.

They deserve answers.

What institutional failures enabled this fraud? Have the loopholes been permanently closed? Have those who facilitated the scheme been prosecuted where evidence exists? What additional safeguards have been introduced to prevent similar abuses?

Without institutional learning, corruption merely changes its methods.

The forfeiture of ₦941.9 million is undoubtedly a significant victory. But the greater triumph would be building a payroll system where fraud is detected almost instantly — or prevented altogether.

Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies have shown that stolen public funds can be traced, frozen, and recovered. The next challenge is ensuring those funds never leave the treasury in the first place.

That, ultimately, is the true measure of accountability — and the anti-corruption success Nigerians deserve.

Nafisat Bello writes from Kubwa. Email: feesat4u@gmail.com