By Sani Aliyu, Zaria
A Professor of Accounting and Financing Reporting, Professor Salisu Abubakar has said that the world has transformed from an information era to knowledge-based, which has led to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
He made this known at the Inaugural lecture titled “From Financial Reporting Gobbledygook To Inevitability: Human Resource Assetization In The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Era And Beyond” he delivered at Yusufu Bala Usman Hall, ABU, Zaria.
According to him, this transformation is fast evolving to another era, to the Fifth era as more companies of service nature are now geometrically increasingly, compared with arithmetically increasing manufacturing business.
Prof. Abubakar who is also of the ABU Zaria, further stated that this reason has forwarded great challenges to accountants in responding adequately to the new transformation.
He said, in responding to the challenges, accountants were able to expand the area of coverage of the discipline and became more innovative and inventive.
Also, the issues of human resource accounting is one of the innovations in the accounting discipline.
The inaugural lecturer said, the formal adoption of Human Resource Accounting in Financial Reporting is no longer a question as the boundary between technology and indistinctive
traditional accounting metrics will continue to lose relevance if they remain anchored solely to the material world.
While recommending that to successfully transition Human Resource Accounting from a theoretical concept into a core operational reality during the Fourth Industrial Revolution and beyond, action must be taken across multiple levels.
Professor Salisu Abubakar advised for academic and professional development level that the professional of tomorrow must be equipped with the multidisciplinary tools required to audit and manage human asset data.
In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Ahmadu Bello University, Professor Adamu Ahmed said, their greatest assets in the University are the Professors, Researchers, Lecturers students, also the infrastructure professionals.
He said investment in people is very important as ASUU used to push a challenge to the management with arguments on infrastructure which is important but it is their people who cherish knowledge.
Investment in the people is part of their expenditure. “What Professor Salisu Abubakar has done is well commendable”.
Prof. Adamu further said that he saw a challenge forwarded in the Lecture that will be of benefit to institutions in Nigeria, Africa and beyond.
The Vice Chancellor said that the future of fourth industrial revolutions will not be determined by the technology alone for “AI can not be a limitation to many other opportunities to change our ways”.
