The study investigates the effect of corporate governance on financial distress in the Nigerian banking industry and examines the discriminatory power of corporate governance mechanism of the board, audit committee, executive management and auditor in one model for financial distress prediction. Secondary data obtained from annual financial statements of twenty banks between 2005 and 2015 were used for the study. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and generalized quantile regression model. The empirical evidence from the study suggests that financially distressed banks are characterized by large board size with members who may not be well versed in banking complexities, chairmen and CEOs with significant shareholding both individually and collectively. Furthermore, the evidence also shows that distressed banks suffer major decline in customer deposits despite increase in size. The study concludes that financial distress can be caused by poor corporate governance mechanism.