Family Leadership: A precursor to national development in Nigeria

Abstract

Leadership is undoubtedly a challenge in Nigeria with regard to National development and political integration. The quest for a competent, effective and purposeful leadership that is capable of turning our great potentials into real economic and political power has been quite elusive for nearly six decades of her independence. This is simply because of the failure to identify the essential values that sustain the various societies now constituting the modern Nigerian society and infuse such values into our social system. Hence, the consequent leadership failures become inevitable. The leadership challenge in Nigeria has degenerated into a crisis situation, which is now a clog on its wheel of striving for development. The paper therefore, examines the concept of family leadership as a precursor to national development. The paper emphasized the need for family moral education and constant family value re­ orientation as the means to surmount the Nigeria's leadership challenges and enhance nation building. This paper recommended among others, the urgent need for a paradigm shift in our family social system in order to restore a value- based Nigerian society that would directly translate to value- based leadership and subsequent nation building.