Corporate Governance and Firm Performance of Selected Financial Institution and Manufacturing Companies Listed in Nigeria Stock Exchange

In line with the code of best practice on corporate governance of 2003, all companies and financial institutions (public and private) are mandated to ensure that they follow the corporate governance practice in their operations.  Majority of the companies and financial institutions in Nigeria have complied while some others failed to follow. This paper examines   the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance of selected financial institution and manufacturing companies listed in Nigeria Stock Exchange. The mechanism used to measure this relationship were board size, firm size and profit after tax. Corporate governance is measured by board and firm size while the firm performance is measured by profit after tax. Secondary data were generated from the annual reports of the selected firms for the period of 2012 to 2016.The data were analyzed by Ordinary Least Square regression and econometrics method of analysis (E-vie 9 statistical software), the results indicates that board size has statistically significant influenced on firm performance. This shows that the larger the board sizes the better the firm’s performance. The result also indicates that the coefficient of firm size has negative influence on the performance of financial institution and manufacturing companies in Nigeria. This connotes that the larger the firm size, the lower the performance of financial institution and manufacturing companies in Nigeria.