Akinyomi, Oladele John, Joshua, Abimbola A
The general public and specific stakeholders have expressed apprehension as regards the degraded quality of the external audit report. The concept of audit quality and its determinants has been a debatable issue over the decades. The current study examined the determinants of audit quality in the context of the Nigerian listed consumer goods companies. Using the ex-post facto research, a sample of six (6) companies were randomly selected from a population of twenty existing companies as at 31st December 2020. Necessary data for the study was spooled from the audited annual financial statement of the considered companies for an eight-year period from 2012 when IFRSs became operational in Nigeria to the 2019 financial year. Correlation and regression analysis were carried out using SPSS version 22. The outcome of the study revealed a statistically non-significant but positive relationship with the board size as a proxy for corporate governance, audit firm size and company size on one hand, and audit quality on the other hand. However, a negative and statistically insignificant relationship is established between the tenure of the audit firm and audit quality in the Nigerian consumer goods sector. The following recommendations are proposed: (i) Policy measures should be put in place to regulate the activities of auditors so as to checkmate unreasonably long-term auditor-client relationship which may jeopardize objectivity and independence. (ii) Small audit firms should be encouraged to form partnerships so as to boost their capacity so as to enhance their audit engagement quality to big client companies.