First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, who was yesterday announced as a Permanent Secretary by the Bayelsa State Government, has been collecting salary without doing any work as a civil servant since 1999, it has been alleged.

The US-based online newspaper, SaharaReporters, said its investigation revealed that Dame Jonathan had been a ghost worker.

It said that “several sources in the state civil service” disclosed that “Mrs. Jonathan has never shown up for work.” One of the sources was quoted as saying of Dame Jonathan: "She is a staff of civil service, she was being paid until a biometrics was done by (former governor) Sylva. She refused to show up for verification in 2009/2010 and her salary was briefly stopped."
According to SaharaReporters: “The source stated that Mrs. Jonathan transferred her service from Rivers State as a director in the Ministry of Education and was considered on ‘on leave of absence’ even in Rivers State while her husband worked at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

“The promotion to Permanent Secretary accorded Mrs. Jonathan contravenes civil service rules, according to the workers in state. They described her as a ghost worker who has not put in any work to deserve a place in the civil service. Instead of the promotion, they told SaharaReporters, such a worker ought to have been sanctioned and dismissed for truancy, as well as made to refund all of the back pay she has accumulated for absconding from work.”