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Adewale Sanyaolu
A Professor of Accounting at Babcock University, Ishola Akintoye, has faulted Nigeria’s current financial reporting system, saying it is inadequate to address the strategic yearnings of corporate and individual life.
Akintoye, while deliver- ing the university’s 28th Inaugural Lecture titled, ‘‘Accounting: A Mismanaged Concept Requiring Urgent Redefinition”, equally posited that sustainability and accountability are yet to be incorporated into the current financial reporting, adding that the efficiency of sustainable accounting report will impact greatly on sustainable financial report.
The don stated that the past conceptual frame- work for the definition of accounting cannot be adequate in driving account- ing in contemporary times and in the future if efforts are not made for an urgent redefinition of accounting, warning that the entire accounting building, which is currently cracking, will sink beyond redemption.
To reverse the trend, Akintoye disclosed that he and a team of accounting experts were developing a new accounting model named “Sustainability Accounting”, which goes beyond the current assumption of stability and growth, to bring in economic, environmental and social factors.
Akintoye noted that they were leveraging on Global Sustainability Index, which has been developed for countries to provide direction for governments, private sectors and individuals as targets for all activities, to be achieved by 2030. According to Akintoye, the sustainable development targets are 17 and include no poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequality, sustainable cities and communities.
Others are responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace and justice, and strong institutions’ partnership, all of which are required to achieve this goal.
Akintoye asserted that an efficient sustainable financial report will enhance decision-making of the total stakeholders and guarantee the going concern of the business as well as the society in general.
Going forward, the ac- counting don recommended that the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commis- sion (NUC) must include in the Accounting curriculum at every level of education, the subject of Strategic Accounting and Sustainability Accounting; that the practice of accounting must demonstrate and emphasise driving the future rather than short or medium term in the private and public sectors of any economy if long term sustainability will be actualised.
