Technology is a key component of forensic accounting research and ongoing fight against graft in the country, a group, the Association of Forensic Accounting Research (AFAR), has said.
Its global President, Dr Godwin Oyedokun, who spoke on the sidelines of the group’s Intensive Training and Induction ceremony at Airport Hotel, Lagos at the weekend, commended ongoing efforts by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration’s current onslaught against corruption but urged the president to do more.
According to him, corruption is a cultural virus which has eaten deeply into the fabrics of the nation.
He said: “Corruption is a cultural thing. In my family for instance, you can’t buy any obscene thing and expect they will celebrate you. No. The first question they will ask is: Where did you get the money to buy it? That is one culture. There are other families that if you do not have material things, nobody reckons with you. That is another culture.
“But to be candid, this administration is trying its best to fight corruption but its best is still not good enough. Without giving my personal opinion, when you listen to people talk outside, they commend the anti-graft war, they say it is good, but it is one way. I will be doing disservice to the nation to say it is total. It is not total. It must be holistic.”
He said the group comprises people who want to conduct accounting investigation in a forensic manner, stressing that its aim are first to prevent fraud, detect and deter. He said it was better to prevent fraud from taking place than taking remedial measures, adding that funds must have got missing after the fraud had been perpetrated.
On the place of technology in fraud prevention and forensic research, he said: “When you say forensic examination, you can’t do it with the mundane things people are using in Nigeria. The key thing is technology. There is a special session on this during this two-day training. In order to conduct research on forensics, you have to dig down and to do that, you need technology. So we have many data mining technology that will get into your system, give it command and you will be able to analyse such.”
He said no fewer than 300 members was inducted on the occasion, adding that to conduct effective forensic investigation, there’s need to have investigative mind.
He recalled that when before now, there was nothing like forensic investigation but said the stolen mandate of Rauf Aregbesola in Ousn State was restored courtesy of forensic investigation and analysis. He said in the past, forensic experts were imported into the country to look into the books of organisation such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and others, adding that members of AFAR now have to competence to do the job, stressing that there was no longer any need to waste foreign exchange hiring foreigners to investigate what local professionals could do better.
AFAR inducted 150 fellows members, 10 associate members and six patrons while it also launched its first journal, the print version and unveiled a book on forensic accounting research development. There was also an award of meritorious service to deserving Nigerian
