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Abstract

Fraud in Nigerian federal government agencies is a persistent issue. This study explores the impact of forensic skills on fraud detection within these agencies, building upon the established connection between forensic accounting and its effectiveness in uncovering fraudulent activity. To achieve this, we investigated the impact of forensic and audit skills on fraud detection in the federal government agencies in Nigeria, identifying its implications on government resources. The focus was on all the federal government ministries and agencies in Abuja (the Federal Capital Territory). With the stratified random sampling, a sample size of 100 was selected. The non-experimental research approach was adopted in the collection and analysis of data with the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Regression analysis used to interpret the data. The results of the findings indicated that no significant relationship exists between forensic skills and fraud detection (where the p-value of 0.507 > 0.05 significant level), and the existence of a significant relationship between audit skills and fraud detection in federal government agencies (with a p-value of 0.000 < 0.05 level of significance). This study recommends increased investment in personnel with forensic and audit skills as a course of action to strengthen fraud detection efforts and improve financial accountability in federal government agencies in Nigeria.

Keywords

Forensic Forensic Skills Forensic Accounting/Auditing Fraud Detection Fraud Theory

Article Details

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Celestine Chukwutem Ebogbue, Nile University of Nigeria

Celestine Chukwutem Ebogbue is a postgraduate student at Nile University, Abuja. He holds a BSc in Accounting (Ekpoma), an MSc in Accounting (Lagos), and an MBA (Abraka). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA) and an Associate member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) of the UK. With over 20 years of working experience, he has traversed both the private and public sectors of Nigeria before settling down to pursue a PhD.

His areas of interest include forensic accounting, auditing investigation, and finance. He is happily married with children and lives in Nigeria.

How to Cite
Ofili, U., Ebogbue, C. C., & Idogho, A. M. (2024). The Impact of Forensic Skills on Fraud Detection in Federal Government Agencies in Nigeria. Ilomata International Journal of Tax and Accounting, 5(2), 590-604. https://doi.org/10.61194/ijtc.v5i2.1202

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