Olanrewaju, Joy OlarikeAbdulkadir, Rihanat IdowuSalam, Mudathir Olanrewaju2021-02-172021-02-1720182408-6959http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/4358Decline in dividend payments and weak corporate governance in Nigerian deposit money banks for the need for this study. Therefore, the study investigates how corporate governance mechanisms such as executive compensation, debt financing, block ownership and directors' membership influence the dividend policy of these banks between 2006-2016. The secondary data and for this study was extracted from the annual reports of the banks and different editions of the CBN fact book. Two-Step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator was employed for analyses. Findings revealed that executive compensation, lagged dividend and size significantly affect dividend payment of deposit money banks while other mechanisms like debt financing block ownership and directors' ownership were insignificant in explaining dividend function in Nigeria banks. The study concludes that executive compensation affects firm's ability to study recommends that regulatory bodies like CBN, NDIC should ensure that the compensation and in the bank executives in regularised so that the interest of investors will not be undermined.enCorporate GovernanceDividend PolicyDeposit Money Banks (DMBs)Article