LASU’s Audit Unit Undergoes Training On Innovative  System, AI Usage In Auditing Process

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The Directorate of Internal Audit unit of the Lagos State University (LASU) on the 10th of June held a capacity Building on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Health and Report writing for the staff of the university’s audit department for efficiency, effective audit processing.

Welcoming the members of the institution’s audit unit to the training, Dr Margaret Ogunkoya, who is the Director of LASU’s Internal Audit unit, said that as the world is developing, especially exponentially, with technology such as AI is making it easier to achieve some strenous task easier, the staff must be ready to adopt more of technology to work and achieve the obejectives of audting accurately.

Dr Ogunkoya also explained that auditing is not supposed to be seen as a process of witch-hunting but rather as a system that helps to prevent misappropriation and also prevent fraud.

Dr Ogunkoya said,” Auditing is an experience on its own. Auditors review thousands of documents and controls, and then if fraudulent activities are detected, the auditor gets into action.
Auditors are professionals who must prevent, protect, and help the management of the institution or organisation to prevent calamity. They help businesses to avoid loss of capital and profit while at the same time ensuring that they help leaders to make informed decisions.

She goes further to explain that, as part of the purpose of the training, the staff of LASU’s audit unit would benefit from the use of AI to work better with auditors using what she termed as “The Eagle Eyes” model to detect fraud using experience and technology to ensure that everything goes through the due process.

Erere Oghenekweve Oyibo-Rhiokaye, a project manager and IT specialist with telecommunications giants, MTN, who delivered the topic titled: Internal Audit In The Age of Automation and AI, explained that gone are the days when auditors would go to an organisation and sit in a room and start to demand documents.

Oyibo-Rhiokaye said that the future of accurate audit and auditing process lies in the digital shift, where the use and infusion of technology, especially AI, is used to arrive at an accurate record of finance, assets of an organisation and institutions.

He said,” Gone are the days when auditors would stay in a room filled with thousands of documents, pursuing managers of the companies, organisations around to demand documents to make their assessment of what they are doing accurate. AI has helped to solve many such problems today.

“What do we have in return? There is operational excellence, blockage of misappropriation, and fraud. Also, the issue of risk management is taken care of using technology in the auditing process today. What of internal control and this helps the governance process, regulatory compliance and operational efficiency.

“One thing that the digital shift helps out with is the automation of repetitive tasks. As an auditor, when you bring in automation, your work is cut short. Also, with the AI technology, real-time access monitoring is available for the auditor’s use to ensure that they are abreast of what is going on.

While expanding his views, Oyibo-Rhiokaye pointed out that the traditional and modern system models of auditing have changed tremendously, with the spreadsheet system being rapidly replaced by data analytics. He stated that the traditional system is rapidly giving way to an AI-generated system for generating results. Another area where he emphasised is the use of machine language which he called a subset of AI.

According to him, “The role automation plays is to help you work faster, more accurately, identify fraud, also to reduce human error and also in the risk reduction that could drain the organisation’s capital.”

Among the tools he suggested for use in the modern auditing process are: Jira, ACL Galvanise, Audit board, Service Now GRC, as he states that auditors need to follow the trends of contemporary times.

He said,” AI and automation are fundamentally transforming the tasks of the auditor. His human judgment and ethic remain irreplaceable; however, future auditors must combine technology with the job,” he concluded.

The guest speaker of the training, Dr Olusesi Olasunkanmi, Head, Medical and Health Services, LASU (Epe Campus), lectured on the title:” Menopause, Andropause and Executive Stress: The Silent Heart Crisis Among Nigeria’s Most Viable Leaders.”

Dr Olusesi explained that professionals, the auditors, would be under pressure due to the nature of their profession, yet there should be space for adequate rest, such as 7-8 hours of sleep at night.

The Commonwealth Professional Fellowship member also pointed out that the auditors should endeavour to live a healthy life by watching their diet, especially their intake of carbohydrate-based food and also to at least engage in some form of walking or moving exercises.

He said,” The stress of the job can kill if not taken care of. Hypertension, high blood pressure, and sugar levels are the results of not taking care of one’s health.

“Stress is not what you feel, but it is what your body tells you! On the inside, hormones are fighting in the body. We are more than the work we do. The challenge that we face is enormous.”

While explaining the menopausal and angropausal issues, Dr Olusesi stated that while the first applies to women, the second applies to men.

Both, according to him, are the result of ageing, especially from the ages 30s, 40s and thereabout.

He said,” Menopause is a hormonal change in the makeup of a woman, while andropause is for men. Before this period, the system was already chaotic. You start to experience added weight, low libido for men, and loss of sleep, which leads to gradual system collapse.

“The human body does not negotiate, he explains.

While giving solutions to the auditors, he advised them to always do a proper checkup for sugar levels, cholesterol, weight gain and know their numbers.

He also advises that sleeping at night, avoiding food such as Nigeria’s staples like ‘Eba, Fufu, Semo, etc.’ after seven o’clock should be avoided, but instead, fruits or vegetable -based foods should be taken.

He said, “Nigeria needs experienced leaders. Our public institutions need your accumulated wisdom, and so do your families. All these are not possible if your health collapses, and these are real,” He concluded.

Lawal Temitope, Deputy Director of the Institution’s audit unit, in his lecture titled, Internal audit and report writing emphases the need for objectivity.

Temitope stated that if a proper audit is not carried out, then the report would be inaccurate and fieldwork without a proper report is not complete.

He said, “When an auditor goes to the field, and the report is not there, nothing has been done. Also. When you go to audit, be objective. That is the kernel of the profession. If you do your work well and another auditor goes to check, whatever results you come up with is what the other person would also bring in.

Another area where he touched is integrity, which he stated is another cardinal core of the auditing profession because without integrity, then the audit is a waste of time