AN EVALUATION OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE CODE AND SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN NIGERIA

The paper evaluated Nigerian corporate governance code to identify the need for an adoption of a separate corporate governance code for SMEs as identified in Dubai and United Kingdom. Corporate governance code essentially is set out help corporate organizations in addressing ownership and control to ensure sustainability of their system into foreseeable future. This code requires a special attention for business continuity among SMEs in Nigeria. The study adopted secondary data approach by reviewing the corporate governance for Nigeria, corporate governance code for SMEs in Dubai and some other relevant literature. The findings revealed that Nigeria and some West African countries have no separate corporate governance code that guides their SMEs for growth and sustainability. The number of failed SMEs should encourage regulators to set up an identifiable corporate governance code for this group. The study recommended that Nigeria should take a cue from Dubai by organizing a separate forum to sensitize SMEs on the need to adopt corporate governance code for the expansion of their business, access to credit, opportunity for foreign technical partnership and foreign investment, the regulators should device a monitoring system that checks the failure rate among the SMEs and provide training to family business owners on the need to embrace corporate governance code.