THE APPLICATION OF BENFORD’S LAW IN SALES DATA OF NIGERIAN OIL AND GAS COMPANIES

Manipulated sales data in the financial statements of business organization has continued to distort the quality of information provided to shareholders as well as the public. The objective of this study is to determine fraud in sales data of oil and gas companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study employed Chi-square to determine the significant of the level of deviation of sales data from the proposed Benford’s Law. The results of the analysis show that the deviation of sales data from the expected Benford’s digits distribution law is not significant. This implies that sales data of oil and gas companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange conform to the proposed Benford’s digit distribution law.  Based on this finding, the study affirms that sales data as provided by the oil and gas companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange are genuine and are free from manipulation. The study recommends strongly the application of Benford’s Law for the investigation of anomalies in accounting data.