ABSTRACT

The unmatured mind would ask whether the auditor could not detect, forestall and report the impending failure in some bank in the financial service industry. Who can detect? Some have even gone further than to call the prosecution of the Statutory Auditors of those effected banks. The problems facing the society which the researcher has taken upon himself to provide answer is the failure of banks in Nigeria financial service industry and the role of auditors in the failed banks. The purpose of this researcher is ascertain the causes of banks failure detection and see if any way the auditing , could said to embrace failure detection and prevention and find out whether the auditing profession is still of relevance to the Nigeria society in the facing of the distress of the they have audited and okayed. During this researcher work, data were collected on some specific purpose and research hypothesis were formulated and were tested to validity or otherwise of such claims in the primary and secondary data. A careful use of the data has been made of statistical analysis tools such as percentage, table, and figures and more importantly chi-square (x2) tests in analysis the data collected. The finding of the study revealed the union bank and Main s i eam bank plc were undergoing adequate, timely, and thorough audit prior to their failure and their auditors, base on the finding of statutory auditors a letters were given to the management of this banks and the causes of failure were mainly due to internal management abuses and unstable fiscal and monetary police climate in the country. Finally the researcher recommended that the supervisory and regulatory body's i.e. CBN and NDIC should be more alive to their responsibility of monitoring the banking industry in other to check the incident of failure and that xi auditors should be more empowered by the law to detect, forestall and report impending failure or existing failure in their client companies and to the public.