ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to examine the effect offorensic accounting on fraud detection in Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to; determine the effect ofcomputer assisted auditing onfrauddetection in Nigeria public sector; examine the effect ofdata mining onfraud detection in Nigeria public sector; examine the effect ofrelative sizefactor onfraud detection in Nigeria public sector. The study employed the use of the survey research while the population ofthe consisted of JOO internal audit staffofAbia State Ministry ofFinance. A sample size of80 was obtained using the Yamane formula ofsample size determination while primary source ofdata collection which is use ofquestionnaire was adoptedfor this study while use ofinductive and empirical methodological framework. After collection of the data from the questionnaire, the data was tabulated and statistically analysed using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) analytical technique. The findings of the study reviewed that computer assisted auditing has a significant effect on fraud detection and prevention in Nigeria public sector, data mining has a significant effect onfraud detection and prevention in Nigeria public sector and relative size factor has no significant effect on fraud detection andprevention. The study concluded thatforensic accounting approach orprocedure necessaryfor is an effective toolfor detection andprevention offraud, it also reviewed that the use ofForensicAccounting do significantly reduces the occurrence offraud cases in the public sector, as it equally showed that there is significant difference between Professional Forensic Accountants and Traditional External Auditors in terms ofskills and techniques applied in Fraud detection andprevention. The study therefore recommended that appropriate sanctions should be applied whenfraud is detected, the government needs to support induction and work related training, particularly for employees involved in internal control system and the accounting sector, to ensure their responsibilities and duties are regularly highlighted and reinforced and that best practices isfollowed across organizations service, standard setting process should be modernized and streamlined to ensure that guidelines can be altered, created, or eliminated as changing conditions dictate.