Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The Nigerian leadership challenge is largely a result of the character of the ruling class. Evidently, this has been demonstrated in the failure of governance either under military dictatorship or civilian democracy from independence to date. Thus, it has been a long saga of woes – ineptitude, corruption, political and religious violence and the like. The paper undertakes an analysis of this state of affairs as it is portrayed in the literary texts, namely Victor Anyagu’s The Other Alternative, Hameed Lawal’s The Mandate and Tayo Olafioye’s A Parliament of Idiots. The paper is of the opinion that the need for an African leadership that has the competence to comprehend the threats, challenges and opportunities of globalisation, the imperatives of democratisation and good governance, the vision of a preferred future and the capacity and commitment to realise it, is clearly critical to Nigeria’s rise from a continuing pariah state to a truly developed nation.