Corruption and Deepening Crises of Development: Nigeria's Political Leadership in Perspective

This paper examined corruption and deepening crises of development in Nigeria. Noting that development is a double-edged affair, which must transcend all nook and cranny of the Nigerian state. For the development Nigeria yarns for to materialize, corruption and corrupt practices must firstly be curtailed in the circle of political leaders. Hence political intrigues as cover for corruption among political elites will continue to occasion and account for ineffective political leadership with its grave -impact which can never be over-emphasized. The paper made use of secondary sources of data, historical descriptive analysis and the Modernization theory of development as its framework of analysis to argue that of all the deepening crises militating against Nigeria’s quest for socio-political and economic development, the most daunting appear to be untamable corruption. The multi-dimensional consequences of corrupt practices on a nation’s socio-political and economic development cannot be overemphasized, as virtually all sectors of the country, including education, health, agriculture, politics, technology, etc., are negatively affected, with the resultant outcome like extreme poverty, high level of illiteracy, economic dependency, technological backwardness, political instability, etc. The central opinion of this paper is that corruption has been completely institutionalized into the contemporary Nigerian economic and socio-political systems and this is now reflecting in the growth and development of the nation. It was discovered that all forms of corruption manifested in bribery, frauds, embezzlement, election rigging, examination malpractice etc. are noticeable in Nigeria. The conclusion however, is that no matter the magnitude of natural resources present, the size of the foreign exchange earnings, technological know-how, the efficiency of labour and the availability of basic infrastructure, development cannot be sustained in Nigeria except corruption is eradicated.