CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The level of fraud in the present-day Nigeria has assumed an epidemic dimension. It has eaten deep into every aspect of our life to the extent that 3-years-old child talks about yahoo mail or 419, newly discovered sobriquet for advanced free fraud that is hunting our banking industry. Nigerian with all of its natural and human resources together on the brink of destruction because of fraud. Much of what we do is “cutting leaves” instead of dealing with the root problem (David, 1994). Generally, fraud takes its roots from the human heart. It is an axiom that the heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked. Fraud is the number one enemy of the business world, no company is immune to it and it is in all works of life, (Adeyemo, 2012). The fear now is rife that the increasing wave fraud in the financial institutions in recent years, if not arrested might pose certain threats to stability and survival of individual financial institution and the performance of the industry as a whole and no area of the economy is immured from fraudsters and even the banking system (Abubakar, 2004). The existence of financial intermediaries automatically takes care of the sizes of fund existing in the economy. Banking sectors are financial institutions that intermediate between the surplus units of the economy (household) an the deficit unit which companies, government, business enterprises by mobilizing the surplus unit of the economy to save part of the income that are not consumed and repackage it for lending to the deficit unit at a considerable interest rate. Examples of financial institutions we have in Nigeria are banks, insurance companies, savings and loans (Mahinda, 2012).