ABSTRACT

The study focused on the effect of corporate governance on the financial performance ofbanks in Nigeria. An ex-postfacto research design was adopted and data collectedfrom secondary sources were analysed using ordinary least square techniques. From the regression resultfor the relationship between board size and performance, the coefficient ofthe model isfound out to be negative (-1.977), with a p- value of.053 significant at only 10%. This result shows that board size and performance in terms ofROE move in opposite directions. The negative relationship is also seen to be considerably important to the performance ofbank. This indicates a significant negative effect ofboard size on thefinancialperformance ofthe listed banks. The result also revealed that on the relationship between proportion of outside directors and financial performance indicates that significant negative relationship exist between the two variables. Furthermore the study revealed that findings revealed that a strong positive relationship exist between the governance disclosure of banks and the performance of banks in Nigeria. From the analysis above, the study therefore conclude that there is no uniformity in the disclosure of corporate governancepractices made by banks in Nigeria. Though they all disclose their corporate governancepractices, butwhat is disclosed does not conform to any particular standard. The banks do not disclose in general how their debts are performing, by providing a statement that expresses outstanding debts in terms of their ages and due dates. This is however done for insider-related debts in some banks. The insider-related debts are expected to form an insignificant part ofthe debts ofthe banks and so mayprovide an adequate picture ofthe riskprofile ofthe banks. The study recommends that Efforts to improve corporate governance should focus on the value ofthe stock ownership ofboard members, since it is positively related to bothfuture operating performance and to the probability ofdisciplinary management turnover in poorlyperforming banks.