POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

A DESIDERATUM FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC

Abstract

This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of political leadership on national development in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Effective and robust political leadership is germane to the actualization of government as it provides a veritable platform for the participation of the masses in governance, guarantees the survival of the polity as well as legitimacy of government. Evidence of performance of the political elites have been mixed in extant literature with some studies indicating that they have performed quite creditably in that regard, while others found the reverse to be the case. This study employs elite theoretical framework of analysis. Secondary sources of data are adopted which include: textbooks, journals, and newspapers among others. Qualitative analysis is adopted for this study. From the critical analysis of the nexus between political leadership and national development, this work provides an insight and also, identifies the militating factors to include: preponderance cases of corruption in the public service; continued petro-dollar dependency syndrome; ethnic-politics; pervasive nature of patron-client politics in Nigeria’s party system; and the technological crisis, among others. Therefore, the study recommends that political leadership while in government should, among other things, ensure that there is viable anti-corruption institutions in place with the operators being insulated from partisan politics; diversification of the economy; value re-orientation to citizens on national interest; prohibition of patron-client politics in Nigeria’s political landscape; and embracing of technological innovations to meet with the global trends.