International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management United Kingdom Vol. V, Issue 9, September 2017 Licensed under Creative Common Page 61 http://ijecm.co.uk/ ISSN 2348 0386 INTERNAL CONTROL AS THE BASIS FOR PREVENTION, DETECTION AND ERADICATION OF FRAUDS IN BANKS IN NIGERIA Idogei S. Omonyemen Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Nigeria idogeiomonye@gmail.com, sandraidogei@yahoo.com Josiah Mary Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Nigeria Onomuhara O. Godwin Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Nigeria Abstract The focus of this study was to examine the impact of internal control quality on financial fraud detection in Nigerian banks. The objectives were to investigate the effect of internal control size, internal control quality and internal control independence on financial fraud detection. The survey design was employed by the researcher. The population of the study consists of corporate managers and directors of quoted Nigerian banks. The sampling was done using both the purposive and simple random sampling technique. The Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the reliability of the research instrument in this study. The study made use of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis as the data analysis method. The study found that all three core internal audit features; internal audit size, internal audit quality and internal audit independence have a significant positive impact of financial fraud detection. Based on the empirical findings, the study recommends there is the need for banks to increase the size of their internal audit departments, improve the quality of their internal audit units through constant training of the personnel and enhance internal audit independence. Keywords: Fraud, Internal Control Size, Quality, Independence, Banking