CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world with more than 155 million people (World Bank Country Brief 2011). The United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects Nigeria’s population to reach 389 million by 2050 (U.N. Population Division 2011). Nigeria is larger territorially than the American states of Texas and Utah combined, with over 355,000 square miles. But Nigeria’s unique legacy of British colonialism has left it with an overabundance of political, social and economic issues, including only relatively recently becoming a sovereign country. Most scholars associate Nigeria’s contemporary problems with this aspect of its historical narrative. Nigeria consists of over 250 different ethnic groups, languages, and diverse cultures. Since nationhood in Nigeria is a recently contrived phenomenon, literature on Nigeria holds that many Nigerians still identify primarily by ethnicity instead of nationality. Loyalty is naturally to kin and community first, and to the nation thereafter. Disunity is common in countries that are constructed externally, by imperial powers, and can lead to disintegration, as occurred with the former Yugoslavia. This is because the forging of national unity is not typically a process that can successfully be imposed against one’s will. Where it has occurred naturally, national unity has developed gradually over time. Although there are many negative modern effects associated with nationalism, it is commonly recognized as the element that creates cohesion within a society. The inability of Nigerian society to coalesce, caused in part by its postcolonial history, is a source of the worsening economic and social tragedy facing Nigeria over the last half a century (Adebanwi and Obadare 2010).

As part of effort at fighting corruption and strengthening the economy, Nigeria embarked on an aggressive pursuit of economic reform that through privatization, banking sector reform, anticorruption campaigns and establishment of clear and transparent fiscal standards since 1999. The major aim of the economic reforms in Nigeria is to provide conducive environment for private investment (African Economic Outlook, 2006). The reform process has the following key pillars: improved macroeconomic management, reform of the financial sector, institutional reforms, privatization and deregulation, and improvement of the infrastructure for economic growth and development. The poor state of electricity, transport and communications is a major handicap for doing business in Nigeria. Coming down to a heterogeneous country like Nigeria which consists of groups with distinct cultures and languages, and cohabiting together as a federation, a varied version of corruption like tribalism, nepotism, and favouritism are not uncommon. To further compound the problem of the elusiveness of corruption, the AntiCorruption Law (2000), defines corruption as, “including bribery, fraud and other related offences”. However, what seems to unify all available definitions on corruptions is that it is a socio-political, economic and moral malaise. It is an evil wind that does no one any good. Until 2000, the offence of corruption was regulated by criminal and penal code. Sometimes in the 80s the military regime of General Mohammed Buhari made a decree to regulate indiscipline and corrupt practices in Nigeria. The programme was tagged War Against Indiscipline and Corruption (WAIC). When President Obasanjo assumed office in 1999, the first step he took in fighting corruption was the establishment of a commission called Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offeces Commission (ICPC). One innovation of both the act of offering or receiving bribe.

Corruption and lack of accountability are pervasive problems in many developing countries, and they pose significant challenges to the effective delivery of public services. Corruption in the public sector manifests in various forms, including bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, and fraud. It undermines the efficiency of government programs and erodes public trust in institutions. Accountability, on the other hand, involves the mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which public officials are held responsible for their actions, ensuring transparency and integrity in public service delivery. Corruption is a global issue, but it varies in intensity, sophistication and forms from country to country. The deduction or inference from extant literature, public commentaries, analyses , media (print and broadcast) including social networks seem to suggest that corruption is the largest industry with many practitioners in Nigeria. This has a lot of implications for development generally in the country. Most successive administrations at the Federal, State and Local Government always lay emphasised on the problem of corruption, misappropriation and non-accountability. Though, poverty in Nigeria is neccessitated by corruption, mismanagement of public fund and consequently there have not been any meaningful progress in Nigeria. These continues to be an increasing concern regarding the overall results and impacts of the huge amount of resources spent by the Nigerian public sector. There have been several cases of abuse of political power bordering on corruption charges levied against the political class companies, individuals operating in the private sector and several public officers in Nigeria. overtime, public sector auditors have undertaken the audits of government Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) accounting procedures and financial statements by reviewing the legality of transactions made by the audit body to ascertain the efficiency and effectiveness of government programmes.

One of the greatest problem of Nigerian public service is the prevailing incidence of corruption. Corruption therefore has become pervasive, and a cancerous phenomenon bedeviling the Nigerian public sector. Several negative dimension of corruption such as misappropriation, bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, and money laundering, among several others is found among public officials, and has permeated the fabric of the society. Any attempt to understand the tragedy of development and the challenges to democracy in most developing countries (Nigeria inclusive), must come to grips with the problem of corruption and stupendous wastage of scarce resources (Abdul, 2012). This is not to suggest that corruption and prodigality are peculiar to the developing countries. Certainly, corruption is neither culture specific nor system bound. However, the severity and its devastating impact vary from one system to the other

Statement of the Problem

Public sector accounting in a corrupt society is a very serious challenge to the nation economy. This is because the financial records do not reflect the true and fair view of the accounting records. There are lots of collaborations in the utilization of public funds to the extent that funds allocated through the budget are not properly utilized. The annual budget for the public (government) income and expenditure are always presented late. Whatever is the position with timeless of delivery, these budget are never reviewed in time and deviations are not investigated to ensure prompt remedial action which will re-direct and re-orientate plans towards budgeted levels.

A diagnostic survey conducted in 2001 into the Federal Government public procurement revealed that “Nigeria lost several hundred billions of Naira over the last few decades due to flagrant abuse of procedures, monumental corruption, lack of transparency and merit in the award of contracts in the public sector and accountability quandary (Uremadu, 2004). Also, disturbed by the rot and thriving corruption in the civil service, which has cost the country trillions of Naira, President Muhammadu Buhari has taken his anti-graft war to the sector.