Political Leadership and National Integration in Nigeria Implication on Nigeria’s National Unity
CHAPTER ONE
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study therefore is summarized as follows:
- To find out the attitude of leadership towards national integration
- To examine the dimension of leadership with a view to achieving national integration in Nigeria
- To shed more light on the nature of leadership in Nigeria
CHAPTER TWO
CONCEPTUAL REVIEW
Concept of Leadership
Leadership according to Kruse (2013); and Northouse (2016), entails a process whereby a certain individual influences a group of individuals to arrive at a common goal. It cumulates inspiration, persuasion, amidst others in a bid to cajole certain individuals to pursue a vision orchestrated by the leader within the set calculated perimeters to the extent that it becomes a shared vision/effort. While these writer’s works shed light into what is expected of leadership, they however attempt a general analysis of the subject matter while this paper will focus strictly on the quality of leadership obtained in Nigeria which has continued to stall cohesive growth, national integration and development in the country.
To Nwagboso and Duke (2012: 231), leadership is the capacity to set goals and is in fact the cornerstone for the accomplishment of such desired goals. To them, it must not only be people-oriented, but must also involve leader(s) quest to administer the affairs of the organisation/institution, implicit in the history, cultures, norms, values, yearnings and aspirations of the organisation. Their work seems to establish a correlation between leadership and service delivery; thus they argue that the primary responsibility of leadership generally, is anchored on service delivery. However, their work laid so much emphasis on the Umar Yáradua’s administration, while this study will address the dearth in literature up to the present administration of President Mohammadu Buhari.
Adelaja (2016); Asaju, Arome and Mukaila (2014: 119) perceive leadership as a necessary tool for the survival and progress of any group or society. The centre point of their argument is on the depleted moral values of the said leaders which could be adduced for the high rate of corruption, greed, financial aggrandisement of government officials/looting of public funds most especially; which has crippled development in the Nigeria. While this paper agrees with their position on the implications of poor morals of leaders on national development, it goes further to pitch how this to a large extent obstruct the national integration course, instilling feelings of fear, antagonism and mistrust within the various ethnic clans in the country.
Ethical Leadership
Ethical leadership has two critical words central to national development. Studies have shown that for a leader or leaders to positively affect their societies they necessarily should demonstrate high ethical standards. Ethics is concerned with the kinds of values and morals an individual or a society finds desirable or appropriate. Also, ethics is concerned with the virtuousness of individuals and their motives. Northouse (2016) observes that a leader’s choices are largely influenced by his/her moral development; that is, the ethnical milieu within which such a leader was developed, which now serves as a guide. Leadership, on the other hand, is the action of leading a group of people or an organization, or a country. Chemers (1997) and Chin (2015) describe leadership as a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. This view of leadership is essentially related to that which occurs in an organization.
CHAPTER THREE
APPROACHES TO NATIONAL INTEGRATION: AN OVERVIEW
There are different approaches or models of national integration in literature. Some of these approaches or models are:
Assimilation: In this approach, different cultures are blended to be incorporated into one national culture. Most often the minority ethnic groups are encouraged to adopt the culture of the majority ethnic groups which then becomes the national culture. As Shah and Ishaque (2017) observed, “assimilation can be accomplished through socialization and abandoning of socio-political cultural loyalties of various small ethnic groups with their absorption into the major/dominant group”.
CHAPTER FOUR
POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION IN NIGERIA: IMPLICATION ON NIGERIA’S NATIONAL UNITY
Elusiveness of a national leader
By National leader, we mean a leader who commands respect and gains nationwide acceptance from the different ethnic groups and regions of the country. For instance, during the first republic, political parties emerged on ethnic platforms, prominent among which were the Nigeria Peoples Congress (NPC) headed by Sir Ahmadu Bello from the North, the Action Group (AG) headed by Chief Obafemi Awolowo from the West and the National Council of Nigeria citizens (NCNC) headed by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe from the East (Ajayi, 2012). The problems generated by the ethnically heated polity of the first republic were instrumental in bringing in the military into the political arena in 1966. Again, ethnicity reared its ugly head during the military dispensation and eventually plunged nation into an avoidable civil war of three agonizing years (1967-1970), which led to mass destruction of lives and properties (Akinbi, 1999b).
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This section entails the concluding remarks made on this paper which come under the conclusion and the recommendations proffered under the way forward.
Conclusion
The study has examined the multifarious challenges which confronted Nigerian Political Leaders in the task of achieving national integration and development of the country. These problems had been responsible for stagnating or slowing down the pace of development
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