Nigeria audit queries N131bn census device deal with no delivery proof

The record

Nigeria’s National Population Commission (NPC) paid for 800,000 handheld census devices without being able to show auditors that they had arrived, according to the Auditor-General for the Federation’s 2024 Annual Report on Non-compliance, first reported by Premium Times on 8 October 2026. The audit covers the commission’s accounts from 1 January to 31 December 2023, the year of a national census that was postponed on 29 April 2023.

Premium Times puts the contracts and payments queried at the commission at more than N245 billion. The Ledgers has read the NPC section of the report, published in Volume II on the Auditor-General’s website. Several of its issues concern the same device contracts, so the amounts overlap and should not be read as separate losses.

760,000 devices, no stores records

Between 1 December 2022 and 2 May 2023, the report says, the commission awarded contracts worth N131.56 billion to six contractors, who are not named, for 800,000 personal digital assistants (PDAs) and accessories. The commission said it had received 760,000. Auditors found no stores receipt vouchers, delivery notes, waybills or inspection reports; the commission relied on “handwritten notations on unofficial paper”. The audit team was not given access to storage or deployment sites.

The report also says the commission sent 33,304 devices to Lagos beyond the zonal distribution plan the Federal Executive Council had approved for 320,000 units.

Prices above what the regulator cleared

In three contracts, auditors found that the commission departed from what the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) had approved. An order for 80,000 Gisen tablets cleared at N7.36 billion became a N7.85 billion contract for a different brand. A 70,000-unit contract cleared at N6.40 billion was changed to unspecified devices at N6.86 billion. A third, for 50,000 units, rose by N496.7 million through higher unit rates. The report puts the total inflation at N1.447 billion.

Auditors also found that one company received N85.27 billion for 480,000 devices under the foreign-content share and a further N11.57 billion for 80,000 devices under the local-content share, contrary to a BPP due process report of 15 November 2022.

A subscription paid after the postponement

A mobile device management contract worth N4.429 billion was awarded on 19 April 2023. The full sum was paid on 15 May 2023, almost three weeks after the census was postponed, and the time-bound subscriptions expired without census use. The Director-General told auditors they had been used for “normal official activities”; the report says no verifiable evidence was provided.

Two ICT contracts were also queried: N6.23 billion for census IT systems and a disaster recovery centre in Kaduna, built without an approved bill of quantities, and N4.73 billion awarded to a firm that, according to the report, lacked the required professional registrations and offered only a conditional advance payment guarantee.

The responses

Under every NPC issue, the report records the management response as “No response”, and states that the findings remain valid until its recommendations are implemented. Premium Times also reports that the commission did not answer the queries. It identifies Osifo Tellson Ojogun as Director-General during the audited period; his tenure ended in July 2026. The Auditor-General asks the Director-General to account for the sums before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committees and to recover and return them to the Treasury, failing which sanctions under the Financial Regulations should apply.

Questions that remain unanswered

Where are the 760,000 devices the commission says it received, and can it now produce delivery records? Who are the six contractors, whom the report does not name? Will the Public Accounts Committees take up the queries, and will any money be recovered?

These are audit findings, not criminal findings. They describe breaches of financial and procurement rules and gaps in documentation; they do not establish theft or fraud, and no one has been charged in connection with them. The commission has not publicly answered the report.

Based on reporting from: Premium Times · 8 October 2026; Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation · 2024 Annual Report on Non-compliance, Vol. II (National Population Commission section).