Political Economy of Leadership and Economic Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Unarguably is the fact that Nigerian leadership and economic development are in crisis. What has remained debatable by many scholars is the explanation of whether it is rulership or followership that is the cause of leadership and economic underdevelopment. Leadership presupposes followership. It presupposes a group of people who, from among themselves, have produced a leader or from among whom a leader has emerged. Plausible in the argument of most scholars is that some have blamed it on the corrupt practices of politicians at the helm of affairs. Others blamed it on the disarticulated nature of the economy; while others blamed it on military rule which relegated public accountability and its passion for primitive capital accumulation; and blocked capitalist thesis. The objective of the paper is to provide a political economy critique of Nigeria leadership using economic dominations as its unit of analysis. By way of an empirical narrative, predicated on Marxist political economy approach, the paper traces the historical dialectics of Nigeria leadership to the fear of economic domination. The major finding of the paper is that most Nigerian leaders emerged out fear of what will happen to them and their ethnic group rather than their nation. The paper concludes that the Nigerian leadership has been highly characterised by accidental leaders; and recommendes that a more committed leadership approach for Nigeria should be promoted to deal with the nation and nation-state.