Nine months after resigning over a certificate forgery scandal, disgraced former science and technology minister Uche Nnaji is still drawing federal salaries and allowances, with payroll records showing he may have illegally pocketed up to N300 million.
Nine months. That’s how long Geoffrey Uchechukwu Nnaji has been gone from office — and how long Nigeria’s federal payroll has apparently forgotten to notice.
According to Peoples Gazette, the now-disgraced former minister of science and technology, who resigned on October 7, 2025 after being exposed for forging his NYSC certificate and a University of Nigeria degree, has continued collecting his salary as if nothing happened. Records from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) show Nnaji — payroll number 561829 — still pulling in N1.1 million in monthly basic salary, plus allowances ministry officials say should have stopped the moment President Bola Tinubu showed him the door.
The numbers are staggering: ministry insiders believe Nnaji has received at least N125 million since leaving office, with fears the true figure could be as high as N300 million once allowances are fully tallied. And it’s not over — as of June 15, Nnaji was reportedly still queued to receive his June 2026 salary into his First Bank account.
This isn’t Nigeria’s first rodeo with payroll ghosts. The Gazette previously exposed how Bashir Ahmad, a media aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, kept drawing salaries months after quitting to chase a House of Representatives ticket in 2022.
Nnaji’s downfall itself reads like a thriller — the SSS reportedly knew about his forged NYSC papers back in 2023 but allegedly hid that information from the Senate, allowing lawmakers to confirm him anyway. His certificate even claimed he started youth service before graduating from UNN — a school that later confirmed it never issued him a degree certificate at all. He resigned only after mounting court cases, blaming unspecified “blackmail” from political rivals back home in Enugu.
For now, though, the money keeps flowing — certificate scandal or not.
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