AUDIT COMMITTEE AND EARNINGS PER SHARE OF DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between audit committee and earnings per share of deposit money banks in Nigeria.  The crises rocking the financial institutions now and then necessitated this study. The sample size for the study consisted of 14 quoted deposit banks in Nigeria with one hundred and twelve (112) staff that fell under the category of our study. The study used both Primary and secondary data collection. The primary data on corporate governance and financial performance played the main role and were collected from respondents using personal interview and questionnaire, instruments found to be reliable with Cronbach Alpha and was above 0.7 coefficients. While the secondary data was collected from the bank’s annual report and accounts through the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and played a supportive role to the primary data. Data were analyzed using descriptive and Pearson correlation coefficient statistical tools with the aid of statistical package for social sciences version 21.0. The findings at 0.05 level of significance reveals that audit committee have a positive and moderate relationship with return on asset (r = 0.433**) and earnings per share (r = 0.584**) in the quoted deposit money banks in Nigeria and also board of directors’ composition was also found to have moderate relationship with return on asset (r = 0.558**) and earnings per share (r = 0.439**).  Based on the findings, it was concluded that audit committee significantly impacts earnings per share of the deposit money banks. Therefore, the study recommends that there should be statutory training and re training of banks management team to inculcate in them good corporate governance practices.