Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standard in Nigerian: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Abstract

This paper examines the mandatory adoption of IFRS in Nigeria that started since January, 2012; and how far the Nigerian government via the Financial Reporting Council has gone in the transition of Nigerian local GAAP (SAS) to International GAAP (IFRS).The study examined and identified the benefits that Nigeria and Nigerians gained so far as a result of convergence into IFRS; the bottlenecks that paralyze the full percentage of the transition as well examined the techniques taken by Nigeria in making sure a smooth, successful and amicable implementation of the three stages of convergence.In the course of this study the study observed vividly that Nigeria has gained a lot from the convergence because most of its local financial expertise are now turned into International expertise as well as International financial consultants, thus, convergence has increase the level of employment in the country.The main drawbacks of the transition is amendments of Nigerian tax laws, because tax laws are among the most complicated laws in accounting arena; weak compliance and enforcement mechanisms by Financial Reporting Council. As a manner of recommendation, for Nigerian government to gain more from dividend of convergence there is need to increase the time period for the on-going transition because implementation of certain requirements of International Standards like IFRS successfully should be in a gradual and careful process not just three years, because convergence to IFRS is not just an Accounting and Taxation exercises but a total and complete transition that requires every stakeholders concerned to learn a new technical language as well as new modes of working with a new standard.