42 African J. Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2020 Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Effect of corporate governance on income persistence and value relevance of quoted Nigerian firms Cosmas Ikechukwu Asogwa*, Grace Nyereugwu Ofoegbu and Uche Modum Department of Accountancy, University of Nigeria, Nigeria Email: cosmasasogwa@gmail.com Email: grace.ofoegbu@unn.edu.ng Email: uche.modum@unn.edu.ng *Corresponding author Abstract: This paper examined the effect of corporate governance structures on earnings persistence and value relevance of Nigerian firms. Analysis was made using multivariate and multiple regression analytic tools with sample of 148 audited financial statements of quoted Nigerian firms in Nigerian Stock Exchange between 2014 and 2017. We found that CEO duality positively but insignificantly affected income persistence and positively and significantly affected value relevance. Board size significantly and negatively affected earnings value relevance while it negatively and significantly affected earnings persistence. Audit committee had a significant positive effect on earnings value relevance and accrual persistence. Thus, audit committee plays a vital constraining role while board expansion does not necessarily increase earnings quality. Overall, we can infer that the analyses involving all key earnings quality proxies could yield a better conclusion. Investors should rely largely on models that examined various impacts on earnings quality proxies. Keywords: corporate governance; earnings persistence; earnings predictability; value relevance; CEO duality; audit committee; board size. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Asogwa, C.I., Ofoegbu, G.N. and Modum, U. (2020) ‘Effect of corporate governance on income persistence and value relevance of quoted Nigerian firms’, African J. Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.42–65. Biographical notes: Cosmas Ikechukwu Asogwa is a Lecturer in the Department of Accountancy, Renaissance University, Nigeria and has completed his PhD in Accountancy from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. He is also a Qualified Associate Chartered Accountant with the Institute of The Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and has vast industry experience in private sector. His research interest is in a broad area of corporate finance, corporate strategies, sustainability accounting, corporate governance and reporting, earnings management and small business lending. He is a reviewer of some top ranking journals indexed in Scopus and Clarivate Analytics. Grace Nyereugwu Ofoegbu is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Accountancy, University of Nigeria and holds a PhD in Accountancy. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). Her research interest includes corporate financial reporting, taxation and corporate governance.