ABSTRACT

Corporate governance is a mechanism through which corporations are governed and controlled with a view of increasing shareholder value and meeting the expectations of the other stakeholders. It is also a system having a corporate control structure combining strong leadership and operations monitoring. The purpose is to establish a transparent working environment and enhance the company's competitiveness. The recent financial crisis that hit the globe in twenty-first century necessitated the move for good corporate governance practices The common denominator of these monumental failures was poor corporate governance culture, exemplified in poor corporate management, fraud and insider abuse ofpower by management and board of directors. This study is aimed at finding the impact of corporate governance on firm performance ofselected companies quoted in the Nigerian stock exchange. A sample of248 companies were selected employing simple random sampling technique. The researchers used the econometrics analysis software E-views 7.0 to analyse their data. Return on equity and return on assets were used as the proxies for firm performance, while board size, hoard independence, board gender diversity and ownership structure were variables used for measuring corporate governance. The study results reveal that there is significant negative relationship between board size andfirmfinancialperformance. Board independence, ownership structure and board gender diversity' do not have significant impact on firm performance. The study suggests that statutory bodies should enact laws that will mandate all firms to maintain small board size