ABSTRACT

 The relevance of' Forensic accounting has been of growing interest to various stakeholders that include the government, investors, practitioners and the regulatory bodies, While corporate failures like the often cited Enron and WorldCom cases have globally brought forensic accounting to the limelight, the growing relevance of forensic accounting is largely derived from the ever growing spates of fraud and official corruption that constitute the greatest threat to the socio-economic development of Nigeria. This exploratory studs' portrays forensic accounting issues in accounting and audit practice in Nigeria" will be conducted to focus on most important pi'ublcms l'ncing a corporate organization. Their views were obtained through structured intervic'.\ s and evaluated against known research findings on the practice of forensic accounting in Nigeria. The key findings of this study are that: there is a significant relationship hct\\ccn frequent occurrence of fraud and loss of confidence in financial institutions. forensic audit is a useful method of l'i'aud detection and prevention in financial institutions, fraud is a general phenomenon. which exist in almost every organization. the incidence of fraud affects every management and staff worker of an organization when it occurs. tlicic is a relationship between fraud and business failures. Most fraudulent acti\ itics that- lend to bank failures arc done by insiders. That is people within the organization. More thaii 7fto cases of bank failures are done by fraudulent activities, Most times emplovces of auì organization. foil to report fraudulent activities when they occur, and E'ou-iiuuitti hg of fraud in banks accounts to a general decline in depositors!investors' confidence in the system.The study recommends among others The internal control system of C\ cr institution must be strengthened so as to be able to check fraud occurrence. An cxnuiplc of' such internal control system is the segregation of duties SO that one person does not have total control over an area of the institution. Employees training should be encouraged so as to equate ti-ic over-Increasing complexity ii technologies over tuie \ cars.