Corporate Governance and Internal Control System: an Empirical Investigation of the Nigerian Banking Industry

The banking industry is widely recognized as an indispensable link in the process of economic development. Regrettably, over the past decades, the Nigerian banking industry has not been able to trigger the desired level of socio-economic growth and development in the country due to a number of factors, including poor Corporate Governance, poor quality of risk assets, weak internal audit function and high incidence of fraud and forgeries, among others. Consequently, this resulted to distress and seizure of operating licenses of fifty (50) banks in the country, from 1994 to 2006. This book empirically assessed the relationship between Corporate Governance (CG) and Internal Control System (ICS) in the Nigerian banking industry, with a view to understanding how the effectiveness of control mechanisms can be enhanced; which ultimately will assist in ensuring that corporate scandals, frauds and failures are minimized; different risk exposures of banks mitigated; shareholders? wealth maximized; assets of depositors, shareholders and creditors protected and the value of banks enhanced in Nigeria.