This paper reviews the historical background of corporate governance and emerging issues in the development and practice of corporate governance in Nigerian and South African firms. The paper examines the role of institutional bodies on corporate governance of listed firms, regulatory and enforcement, and institutional bodies of corporate governance in Nigeria and South Africa. Other issues also examined include role and responsibilities of corporate board and external factors that affect corporate governance such as politics, corruption, economic, and ownership structure of listed firms. We find that institutional shareholders are more active in South Africa than in Nigeria, also shareholders association in South Africa are not active compared with that of Nigeria. In addition, South Africa have a stronger institutional framework than Nigeria, this really provide an evidence to show that enforcement of corporate governance practices in South Africa seem to be better than Nigeria. Generally, we find that corruption and bribery, politics, economic and ownership structure influence effective corporate governance practice in each country
Keywords: Corporate Governance, Corruption, Economics and Ownership structure, Institutional frameworks, Politics
