White-collar fraud and whistle-blowing investigations: The role of forensic auditors in Nigeria

Abstract

The study explores the relationship between white-collar fraud and investigations of whistleblowing. The research design adopted for the study is a survey by directly obtaining the information from the respondents; the study population consists of 83 forensic auditors in the southwest of Nigeria. A Census Sample Technique was used in selecting the whole population of the study. The study shows that even though the performance of forensic audits is favorably linked with whistleblowing, internal controls, and corporate governance, none of the components had statistically significant results at conventional levels (p > 0.05). The z-statistics values of 1.2521 for corporate governance, 1.1783 for internal controls, and 1.1647 for whistle-blowing indicated that the correlations are due to random variation rather than real causal effects. The study concluded that in the Nigerian banking sector, issues such as fraud were still shrouded in mystery and had not been excluded from uncertainty. The study recommended that whistleblower protection accorded by law be provided to the whistleblower’s belongings and life by governments; and equally, Nigerian banks should invest more in modern technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and machine learning capabilities and expedite the fraud detection process.