ONE of the major challenges facing governance in developing countries, especially Nigeria, has to do with book-keeping. The record of our receipts and payments are not only poorly documented and badly kept; the scanty records available are not brought to bear on subsequent expenditures by successive administrations, leading to poor government accounting; a recurring decimal in the nation's political economy. But as professional accountants would say, financial management involves much more than just keeping a record of income and expenses, the common rituals of the Nigerian public sector accounting.The foregoing underscores the relevance of Theory and Practice of Government Accounting in Nigeria (Pumark Nigeria Limited; 2011) by Eddy O. Omolehinwa (a professor of accounting and former dean, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Lagos) and James Kayode Naiyeju (a former Accountant-General of the Federation).The book comes at a time calls for town and gown collaboration in academic publications are rising. It is perhaps one of the few books in recent times by two leading gurus in the accounting profession in Nigeria from the academia and the field of practice.It has 19 chapters with a comprehensive bibliography and index. The first chapter examines key differences between public sector and private sector institutions from the accounting perspective. The authors highlight the relative features of accounting in for-profit and non-for-profit organizations and situate the role of government in the society and how accounting aids this role. The chapter also enumerates challenges of research on government accounting in Nigeria.Chapters 2 and 3 treat the ethical and legal foundations of government accounting practices in Nigeria. These include the 1999 Constitution and various Acts of Parliament in the past four decades. Among other subjects, the authors looked at fiscal responsibilities such as Fiscal Responsibility Act, Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), the budget process, Savings and Asset Management.In the next three chapters, the authors discuss the roles of financial officers of government, the roles of key institutions and actors other than financial officers in government accounting and learning from best practices in developed nations such as United Kingdom and New Zealand while Chapters 7, 8, and 9 deal exhaustively with budget formulation, monitoring and evaluation. Special areas such as cash planning, levies, contract benchmarking, public borrowing and debt management are discussed with actual examples in Chapters 10 through 15 in the book. One chapter each (17 and 18) is dedicated to accounts reporting and the vexed issue of public accountability in Nigeria. The very topical issue of Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund rounds up the book.Perhaps the most striking feature of the book is the detailed used of practical examples and data by the authors. This should be expected, going by the pedigree of the scholars. For instance, Omolehinwa is a professor of accounting whose primary research interest is government accounting; he is currently a commissioner at the Southeastern Zone of the Tax Appeal Tribunal, Enugu, while Naiyeju, a chartered tax practitioner rose through the ranks to become the Executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (1992-1999) and Accountant-General of the Federation (1999-2005).Generally, the book is a commendable effort. It promises to be a leading authority on government accounting in Nigeria. The review questions, at the end of each chapter, underscore the fact that students are part of the target audiences the authors have in mind. Similar questions ought to be outlined to stimulate brainstorming sections among practitioner in the field as well.The book's major shortcoming appears to be the inadequacy of real-situation scenarios. The reader should have been availed some details of the accounting challenges that Mr. Naiyeju faced while in the saddle as the Accountant-General of the Federation and how he got around those challenges.
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