Perceptions of Auditors' Independence in Nigeria

It has been asserted that the value of an auditor's report or auditing services depends on the fundamental assumption that auditors are independent of their clients. This means that if the users of financial statements do not believe that an auditor is independent of a client, they will have little confidence in the auditor's opinion. There have been considerable studies on this issue. However, recent events like the collapse of Enron in the United States of America, the Africa Petroleum saga in Nigeria and Cadbury Nigeria P LC have opened fresh discussions on the vexed issue of auditors' independence. This study therefore examined the issue of auditor/ independence from tlie perspective of various stakeholders. It presents the results from a survey of a sample of auditors, .bank loan executives and financial analysts. The data. were subjected to the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study found that Nigerian auditors are low on the auditor's independence scale due to a number of factors. The study also made recommendations to mitigate the situation