The study examines corporate governance mechanisms on capital structure of listed food and beverages in Nigeria. The sole objective is to explore the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on capital structure for a period of ten years, from 2004 to 2013. The study employed secondary data from the annual reports and the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) fact books within the period of the study. Generalized Least Square Regression Technique for data analysis was employed to investigate relationship that exists between capital structure and various independent variables in the model. 

The study reveals that ownership concentration and board composition of the explanatory variables are statistically and significantly influencing the explained variable proxied by debt to total capital and debt total asset. On the other hand, institutional ownership of our explanatory variables is not significantly influencing the capital structure. Ownership concentration, board composition and firm size have significant impact on debt to total capital at 1% level, while institutional ownership has insignificant impact on the leverage. It is concluded that corporate governance mechanisms are good variables that impact on capital structure. The study therefore, recommends among others that the management of listed food and beverages firms in Nigeria should recognize and include the corporate governance mechanisms when embarking on external financing decision to enable them to arrive at an optimum financing decision.