Corporate Governance: Has the Nigerian Banking Sector Learnt Any Lesson?

Abstract

The period between 1994 and 2003 witnessed an avalanche of bad corporate governance in the Nigerian Banking Sector culminating in the collapse of 36 banks altogether. This ugly situation forced the Central Bank of Nigeria to embark on the policy of ‘Bank Consolidation’ which reduced the number of banks in Nigeria to 25 and strengthened their capital and asset bases as at 31^st December, 2005.The period between 2005 and 2009 has also witnessed horrible form of governance which led to the immediate sacking of the Chief Executives and Executive Directors of 9 banks in the country. The objectives of this paper therefore were to examine corporate governance issues and challenges in the Nigerian banking sector, to observe the role of the insiders with respect to corporate governance practices, to determine the extent to which poor corporate governance has affected the Nigerian banking sector and to investigate whether the Nigerian banking sector has learnt any lesson as a result of incessant systemic crisis which had bedeviled the sector. Both primary and secondary sources of data were made use of. The primary data collected through the use of questionnaire were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics while the secondary sources included journals and textbooks Findings from the study showed that the Nigerian banking sector is yet to learn from the sad consequences of poor corporate governance of the period between 1994-2003 in particular. It therefore recommended that high quality financial disclosures and total avoidance of insider abuses should be the hallmark of the Nigerian banking sector.