Leadership and National Development: The Nigerian Experience

Abstract

The paper assesses leadership and national development in relation to the Nigerian experience.   Development failures have come about largely as a result of lack of political will, policy reversal  and weak institutional patterns. Thus, the study aims at determining the link between leadership  and national development. Data is generated from secondary sources. The study adopted  descriptive approach and content analysis as its methodological orientation. The paper  discovered that for Nigeria to overcome the challenges of leadership, those on whom the burden  of leadership has been entrusted must fully comprehend their responsibilities, duties and  obligations. They must also be exposed and be prepared to face the challenges of leadership in  developing society, since the future salvation of the country depends on the quality of its leaders.  Also, findings reveal that the history of Nigeria is replete with governance and leadership that in  most cases lacked vision, lacks political will, lacks transparency and accountability, saddled with  corruption, electoral malpractices just to mention a few. These unfortunately has lead to  mismanagement of scarce public resources, and consequently, insecurity, abject poverty,  infrastructural deficit, poor quality of education and other resultant consequences. It was  recommended among others that the present electoral reform should be fast tracked to ensuring  free and fair election that leads to the enthronement of transformational political leaders founded  on distinct sound value systems and with probity and accountability. The paper concludes that  only leadership that has maximum empathy for the people with impartial orientation and capacity  can be relevant to the overall development of Nigeria.