Nigeria’s Audit Report Expose Corruption but No Consequences
The Senate raises alarm over ignored audit queries, in what has now become a predictable annual cycle. The Committee (SPAC) raised the alarm over government agencies ignoring audit queries from the Auditor General for the Federation (AuGF).
This time, the Senate Public Accounts Committee, chaired by Senator Ahmed Wadada, has threatened to issue arrest warrants for top government officials, including the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji; the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso; and the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari.
What is their alleged offence? Repeated failure to respond to financial irregularities flagged by the AuGF but here’s the real question – What difference will this make? If history is anything to go by, nothing will happen. No one will be arrested.
No one will be sanctioned and by this time next year, we will be having the same conversation, possibly with a new set of names but the same underlying issue, an Auditor General’s office that can bark but not bite.
The 1999 Constitution (as amended) establishes the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation as an independent body responsible for auditing all federal government accounts, including ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs). Theoretically, this means the office is supposed to ensure that public funds are spent appropriately and for their intended purposes.
In practice, however, it has little power beyond exposing corruption. The law does not give the Auditor General prosecutorial authority. It cannot impose penalties. It cannot enforce its recommendations. It can only shine a light on financial infractions, hoping that someone or anyone will take action.
Now the consequences of all this issues is a culture of impunity where heads of government agencies know they can ignore audit queries without any real repercussions.
Senator Ahmed Wadada’s frustration was obvious when he revealed that the FIRS chairman had ignored eight separate invitations to appear before the Senate Public Accounts Committee.
The Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited has reportedly been invited nine times, without a single appearance. Even the Nigerian Police Force, an institution that should be upholding the law, has repeatedly refused to honour invitations from the committee.
The fact that no legal consequence exists for ignoring audit queries is bothersome and even when financial infractions are uncovered, as they were in the Auditor General’s 2021 audit report, where MDAs were found to have mismanaged N3.403 trillion, no one is ever held accountable.
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Among the staggering discoveries in that audit, N2.902 trillion was linked to just eight government agencies that failed to recover outstanding government revenue. In one particularly glaring case, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc failed to recover N2.896 trillion. These are not minor accounting errors, they are massive financial breaches.
Yet, year after year, audit reports come and go, filled with damning revelations, but nothing changes. One of the biggest barriers to change is Nigeria’s outdated Audit Act of 1956. A law written almost 70 years ago, in a completely different political and economic landscape, still dictates how financial accountability is handled in today’s Nigeria.
Stakeholders argue that this obsolete law has failed to evolve with modern auditing standards and practices, making it easier for corruption to thrive. Calls for a new Audit Act have been ongoing for years, but progress has been painfully slow.
The first real attempt at reform was during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration when the National Assembly passed an Audit Bill but Obasanjo refused to sign it into law. The same bill has been reintroduced in different forms under successive administrations, yet it remains stalled.
At the moment, a new Audit Service Bill has been passed by the House of Representatives, but the Senate has yet to concur and therein lies another plot twist. Why is the Senate dragging its feet on a law that would strengthen financial oversight?
According to Olusegun Elemo, Executive Director of Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), the enactment of the new Audit Service Act is “long overdue.” He commended the House of Representatives for passing the bill and urged the Senate to follow suit.
“The new law will provide the Auditor General with significant powers to prosecute and sanction anyone found guilty of financial irregularities,” Elemo said. Nigeria is not the only country where corruption exists, but other nations have at least empowered their audit institutions to fight back.
Professor Godwin Oyedokun, an accounting and financial development expert at Lead City University, Ibadan, pointed out that in countries like South Africa and Kenya, the Auditor General’s office has the authority to prosecute cases of financial misconduct.
“There should be established mechanisms to ensure accountability and enforce compliance with audit recommendations. However, everything depends on the broader political will to combat corruption,” Oyedokun said.
Similarly, Barrister Eze Onyekpere, Lead Director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), stressed that without additional powers and funding, the Auditor General’s office will remain ineffective. “The office needs the power to sanction and follow up to enforce the sanctions,” he stated.
At the heart of this issue is a fundamental lack of political will. The laws exist to expose financial misconduct, but not to punish it. The Auditor General does its job by publishing damning reports, but the reports are ignored. The Senate Public Accounts Committee makes threats, but they rarely lead to action.
And so the cycle continues.
Will the Senate finally pass the Audit Service Bill? Will the President sign it into law? Will agency heads ever be held accountable for mismanaging trillions in public funds?
The reality is that unless Nigeria’s leadership makes a conscious decision to enforce accountability, nothing will change. The headlines may be different next year, but the story will be the same.
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