WorldStage– Ecobank Transnational Incorporated didn’t carry out its 2025 board evaluation but shifted it to May this year, a pattern of non-compliance the bank has perfected for the Financial Regulatory Council of Nigeria’s corporate governance code.
Principles 14 and 15 of the Nigeria Code of Corporate Governance (NCCG 2018) requires a listed company to conduct a board evaluation and a governance evaluation, and present the separate findings to the board in a reporting year.
But Ecobank, operating in 35 countries across Africa, informed the Nigerian regulator its governance evaluation was part of its board evaluation for the 2025 reporting year—and in 2023.
WorldStage requested in an email to know if the bank sought an amendment from the regulator—or it had a basis for merging the two principles. The bank didn’t respond as of the time of reporting.
Ecobank also reported in its NCCG 2025 compliance report it didn’t conduct its board evaluation in the financial year, but noted the exercise was on-going as of April 2026 when it filed the report.
It did the same for its 2024 report. The bank claimed then the evaluation didn’t happen in the financial year, but was on-going in March 2025 when it filed the NCCG report.
However, mix-ups appeared in its responses to the regulator’s reporting template, creating inconsistencies between its 2024 and 2025 board evaluation reports and their dates.
“An evaluation was done for 2023. The one for 2024 financial year is ongoing,” Ecobank said in the NCCG report it filed in March 2025. The regulator had asked for the 2024 board evaluation date.
However, the fact changed in its 2025 report the bank filed in April this year.
“An evaluation was done for the 2024 financial year,” Ecobank said when the regulator asked for the 2025 board evaluation’s date. “The one for 2025 is ongoing.”
In both separate reports, the bank said it didn’t present the evaluation result to the board—since the evaluations were on-going after the respective reporting years. But Ecobank would later affirm in that same report the chairman discussed with the directors the reporting year’s board evaluation—an evaluation it earlier said was on-going when it filed the report.
WorldStage attempt to seek clarification for this failed.
So far, no record of the Nigerian regulator flagging Ecobank’s pattern of inconsistencies in board evaluation and the merging of Principles 14 and 15 over the years. No record of sanctions for conducting evaluation months after a reporting year.The two principles the bank treats this way, however, determine the effectiveness of a board and the established pattern of a company’s leadership, according to the code.
