FOR over a decade, Mubarak Bello ran a modest business centre inside the Katsina State police headquarters complex, where he handled many secretarial jobs, including typing documents, processing loan applications to promotion letters for the command.
On September 14, the police issued a statement over the arrest of 38-year-old Bello, accusing him of impersonation, being in possession of a fake police identity card, and unlawful possession of firearms.
The Katsina state police command claimed Bello’s arrest on September 13, 2025, came after a routine night patrol team intercepted his Toyota Corolla. The state police PRO, Abubakar Sadiq Aliyu, said officers recovered a locally made rifle, live cartridges and a ‘fake’ police ID card.
However, The ICIR can authoritatively report that Bello’s arrest is an act of victimisation by the Katsina state command to silence him, after blowing the whistle on a ghost police workers scheme, allegedly perpetrated by the Katsina State police command many years ago.
As far back as 2021, Bello blew the lid on a ghost workers’ racket in the police payroll in Katsina State when he petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission, ICPC providing details about the payroll fraud, which he was privy to while running a business centre at the State Police headquarters.
It was gathered that Bello had also petitioned the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, when his petition to the two anti-corruption agencies made no headway.
The petitions and documents Bello had filed years earlier, some seen by The ICIR, show that he had reported his troubles to the Ministry of Justice, ICPC, EFCC, and even the Police Service Commission, PSC.
Bello insisted in a petition written to the Minister of Justice that the ID card and attempt to enlist his name and one Muhammad Hussaini, was part of a paper trail he began compiling in 2017, when he said the officers first drew him into a multi-million-naira payroll racket.
In a series of oral statements made to the ICPC, he narrated how he had faced attacks and threats on his life. Although The ICIR could not confirm if he obtained a license for possessing such a gun, these circumstances, sources said, could explain why he carried a locally made gun to protect himself.
How it began
Documents reviewed by this medium show that Bello first petitioned Nigeria’s Attorney General on July 20, 2020, through a letter acknowledged a month later. In the petition, he described how senior finance officers at the Katsina State command used his shop to secretly create employment records and bank accounts for ghost officers.
In Nigeria, ‘ghost workers’ are people who appear on a government or organisational payroll but do not actually work there. They are essentially fictitious employees whose names and details, sometimes even bank accounts, are inserted into salary records so that someone else can collect their wages.
Bello in his petition to the Attorney General in 2017 said he was asked to process what he believed were new recruitment papers. At first, he was unaware of its illegality and even when he tried to ask, the officers claimed, “it’s a new recruitment process.”
He claimed that he was misled by the officers to forge certificates, open bogus accounts, create appointments and confirmation documents, generate fake promotion and transfer letters.
He would also gain illicit access to the IPPIS payroll platform to register non-existent employees to divert government funds.
When the officers returned for a second phase, Bello said they asked if he had additional names to include in the enlistment, but he declined. He further claimed that the officers did not give up and later demanded that he submit his own name and that of an acquaintance, Muhammad Hussaini, and produced police ID cards for both.
While he admitted giving in to the pressure and subsequent threats, he declined to open the bank accounts required to collect the fraudulent salaries.
During the first and second processes, he listed more than a dozen officers for some of the policemen, including one Bashir Abubakar in the finance unit of the Katsina police command.
His petitions detailed how salaries were diverted through fake service numbers and promotion letters.
He identified the accused officers to include: CSP Bashir Abubakar, the Katsina Command Finance Officer; ASP Yakubu Ibrahim, the Assistant Finance Officer; and ASP Garba Shinkafi together with his assistant.
Others are, Jibrin Usman, Nasir (Auditor General responsible to the Katsina police), SP Ya’u Idris O/C, Bashir Abubakar (cashier, Katsina command), Idris Mani (O/C variation), Ahmed “Manchester”, Alhaji Ibrahim Kambarawa, Jamilu Abubakar, Kamala Lawal, Sailas Tanko, Safiya Usman, and Michael Victor, along with some unnamed bank managers.
Years of threats, attacks
According to Bello, his resistance triggered several acts of intimidation, adding that the moment he refused and vowed to report the incident, he was persistently intimidated.
Bello had in 2020, explained to ICPC investigators who interviewed him after his petition to the commission how police stormed his home in Sabon Unguwa, Katsina, and his office at the command headquarters, carting documents and machines.
At the time, he was also arrested and detained on alleged false charges of ‘parading himself as a police officer,’ which Bello described as untrue.
He also recounted in his petition being beaten by officers at the Katsina Divisional Crime Officer’s office in 2020.
Independent findings by The ICIR also show how thugs attacked him with machetes, leaving deep cuts in October 2024. His head was macheted and his hand suffered deep cuts. In a voice note obtained by The ICIR, he appealed to acquaintances for help, saying he had been ambushed the previous evening and was receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre Katsina.
Bello said although he fought back during the assault, he was badly wounded and unsure how much longer he could withstand the pressure.
“Can you help me to do this thing, or l should just give up about these people,” he appealed in the recorded voice note, adding, “Even yesterday they attacked me, I’m currently at FMC. I wounded two people, and they also wounded me severely.”
Sources privy to the matter at the ICPC confirmed that the whistleblower had in fact faced several attacks on his life since exposing the rot in the Nigerian police.
Earlier, before the attack, The ICIR gathered that Bello had also been arrested and detained by the police in Kaduna. He was later charged to court before eventually regaining freedom after spirited efforts by lawyers.
Officers decline ICPC investigation, as IGP ignored invitation letters
Following the receipt of Bello’s petition, The ICIR gathered that the ICPC, Kaduna office, began investigating the allegations in June 2020, and found substance in the whistleblower’s claim.
ICPC sources confirmed that officers discovered that some of the payroll numbers Bello provided matched suspicious IPPIS entries already flagged in a separate ghost-worker probe by the commission.
Despite this, ICPC invitations to the accused officers in August 2020 and March 2021 were not honoured. The commission had first written to the accused officers, some of whom ICPC also found suspicious transactions in their accounts, to appear between August 18-20, 2020. However, they did not honour the invitation, citing the need for approval from the Inspector General.
The Commission subsequently wrote to the then IGP Mohammed Adamu in March 2021, requesting him to release the officers for interview and questioning at the commission Kaduna’s office on March 15. But despite acknowledgement, the police headquarter never gave the go ahead for the officers to appear at the agency.
A senior official of the ICPC close to the investigation of Bello’s petition said that it was the uncooperative attitude of the police authorities that stalled the matter until now. The official stated that he was sure that Bello’s arrest amounts to victimisation for blowing the whistle to anti-corruption agencies, noting that the police ID card that is now claimed to be fake was issued to him as part of the scheme to include his name in the police payroll.
“Rather that arrest him, this man, a whistleblower and patriotic Nigerian should be given a national honour and protected from further harassment,” the official stated.
Police mum on findings
Meanwhile, the Katsina State Police Command has yet to comment on the allegations of a ghost-worker scheme within its ranks and the provide response to findings by The ICIR.
The command’s spokesperson Abubakar Sadiq Aliyu, was contacted via WhatsApp messages but he failed to respond by press time.
When called again, he told The ICIR: “I am currently on transit.”
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M