EVALUATING NIGERIAN BANKING REFORMS THROUGH A STRATEGIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT LENS: A LEAST SQUARES APPROACH

From strategic financial management standpoint, reform-driven capital restructuring process has three critical stages which are the diagnostic stage of identifying the cause of a problem, the prescriptive stage of proffering appropriate solution-bound course, and the monitoring stage of following up and seeing remedial recipes through to actualization and sustainability. Banking reforms in characteristic symbolism have not been so thorough in the Nigerian economy over the years. Adopting ordinary least square regression analytical framework, this study examines bank capital as predictor variable in relation to aggregate private sector credit and gross domestic product as respective criterion variables. Financial data (time series) are drawn from related publications of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation covering 23 years (1985-2008), a focal time frame which captures the critical banking reform vicissitudes of the Nigerian economy. The analytical results clearly establish efficacy of bank capital as significant determinant of the dynamics of aggregate private sector credit and gross domestic product in Nigeria. The strategic redirection being advocated underscores conscientious fixing of the age-long monitoring - stage missing link. This should be facilitated by creation of functional corporate governance, judicial/legal, and digital tracking substructures in a holistic banking frame