The Influence of Corporate Governance on Financial Statements of Listed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

The study sought to explore the impact of corporate governance on financial statement quality among listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. In particular, the impact of audit committee effectiveness, CEO duality, and ownership structure on financial statement quality was explored in the study. The study was based on the Stakeholder Theory, which suggests that organizations have an obligation to disclose accurate and reliable information to all stakeholders. The study applied the ex-post facto design and used secondary data collected from annual reports of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria from the year 2015 to 2025. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between corporate governance variables and financial statement quality. The results indicated that audit committee effectiveness positively and significantly influences financial statement quality due to the fact that audit committees comprising of financially literate and independent members increase financial transparency and reporting accuracy. CEO duality, on the other hand, was found to negatively influence financial statement quality significantly.Moreover, there is evidence that ownership structure significantly and positively affects financial statement quality, hence implying that good monitoring of the ownership structure, especially from institutional investors, leads to higher quality disclosure and lower manager’s opportunistic behavior. According to the regression analysis, corporate governance had a strong combined explanatory power, explaining 61.0% of the variations in financial statement quality. This study thus finds that corporate governance is an essential element in improving financial statement quality, transparency, and reliability among listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. Corporate governance codes should be more strictly adhered to, audit committees need to be more efficient, the roles of board chairmen and CEOs should be separated, and more institutional ownership participation should be encouraged