BOARD OF DIRECTOR'S ROLE IN ENSURING AUDIT QUALITY AMONG COMPANIES LISTED IN THE NIGERIAN EXCHANGE GROUP

This study investigates Board of Directors (BoDs) attributes and audit quality (AQ) among companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX). The study adopts a longitudinal research design while a census of the entire 165 non-financial companies listed in the NGX was taken as at December 31, 2022. However, annual reports were only available for 156 companies, obtained the period between 2017 and 2022.The study uses binary estimation techniques, which is appropriate because the dependent variable is dichotomous (taking values of 1 or 0). Relying on the agency and Resource Dependency (RDT) theories, the study hypotheses were that board of directors; independence, size, financial literacy and equity ownership exhibit positive significant association with audit quality. The logit binary estimation technique reveals that board independence, financial literacy, and equity ownership exhibit a positive significant association with AQ at the 5% and 10% levels respectively, suggesting that these attributes enhance audit quality. Conversely, board size shows an in verse significant association with AQ at the 1% level, indicating that larger boards may impair audit quality, potentially due to inefficiencies or diluted accountability. Furthermore, the descriptive statistics indicate that most audit firms in Nigeria issue unqualified audit opinions, a trend consistent with previous years. However, the persistence of corporate failures suggests that unqualified opinions may not always reflect true AQ. This raises concerns about the effectiveness of governance structures in safeguarding AQ and points to broader issues of regulatory enforcement and corporate ethics in the Nigerian corporate environment.