State owned banks privatization has become a major issue in both developed and developing countries of the world. During the 2000s, state owned banks were under examination because of the increase evidence that such banks were performing poorly and creating difficulties for their country’s economies.

The present work evaluates the impact of privatization on performance in a group of Nigerian banks for the period 2000 to 2008.The methodology used is CAMELS framework, the study investigates the impact of privatization on the Nigerian Banking sector performance. The pre privatization era (2000-2003) witnesses a down trend in the Nigeria banking sector performance. On the contrary, the post privatization period (2004-2008) the study has found that, privatization on the Nigeria Banking sector spur performance of seven banks that were privatized. Overall, the empirical results suggest negative effects of the government ownership on the performance of many Nigerian banks. And also government have come to view privatization as an increasing attractive means of solving the problems they encounter with the public banks . The study recommends that, if privatization is to achieve the stated objectives, execution should be in the best interest of the nation especially in the banking sector and well-being of the citizen and Transparency, probity and accountability in banking sector as they affect privatization and other policies must be pursued with vigor.