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

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 31st It is instructive to note that there is hardly any sector of the economy that has not suffered the consequences of lack of good corporate governance practice. This is underscored by the on-going efforts of the Federal Government of Nigeria at entrenching accountability and transparency in both the public and private sectors. Sanusi (2004) observes that “we have witnessed the collapse of many public corporations as well as private 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 o