Leadership and the Challenges of Development in Nigeria Fourth Republic, 2015-2021
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The major objective of this study is to examine the Leadership and the challenges of development in Nigeria’s fourth republic, 2015-2021. Other specific objectives are:
- To examine the relationship between leadership and development crisis in Abia State.
- To investigate the effect of leadership on socio-economic development in Nigeria.
- To determine the effect of leadership on grass-root development in Abia State.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW AND THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK.
Introduction
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literatures that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
The concept of leadership
The term leadership is a burden of responsibility, it is any task of group representation by an individual, group of individuals or an organization based on trust, ability, capacity and the capability to deliver the goals and objectives of the group in good results (Muhammed, 2014). ‘’Leadership has also been described as ‘’a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task’’ (Wikipedia). Moreover, to understand the primary task of leadership assignment, there is the need to define who is a leader, the purpose of leadership and the qualities of a leader. In the book of Robert Greenleaf’s (Chapter 8) characterizes a leader as steward or servant first. The needs of participants are the foremost priority for servant leaders, whose role is to pave the way and provide support for participants to function at their best. Greenleaf provides several criteria for evaluating successful servant leadership: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? In a related concept, one of the Nigeria’s famous orators Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule in most of his public lectures defined a leader as a servant. A leader is one who gives his all, who sacrifice his health for the health of his people, who sacrifice his comfort for the comfort of his people, a true leader is like an umbrella under a heavy rain or a shelter under a sunny day. He was also of the view that if any congressional prayer goes wrong it is the imam leading it that destroyed it. This is an analogy to the function of a leader in terms of result delivery that if a nation fails to achieve its desire goals and objectives, it is the leadership of that country that is responsible. The purpose of leadership in any organization, groups or societies both at micro and at macro level is to help achieve maximum efficiency in the struggle of creating or improving or advancing their collective goals and objectives (Mark etal, 2011). In the case of a state, leadership is a necessity; the purpose of leadership in a state is to manage national resources efficiently and effectively in such a way that improves the general quality of life or their standard of living. Experiences have shown that only good leadership produced good result. Good leadership are the collections of leaders who are honest, morally high, incorruptible, reliable and dependable. But in a situation where these qualities are found wanting, the people that occupies leadership’s positions only lead themselves; and the prime of objectives of achieving economic prosperity, good standard of living or the general quality of life remains in the horizon.
Attitudinal characteristics of bad leaders are as under:
- Corruption and immorality
- Injustice and dishonesty
- Selfish interest when it comes to decision making
- Exploitive and manipulative
- Lacked of confidence in their abilities
- Risk takers
- Arrogance
- Inconsistency
- Too much failure to achieve the targeted objectives
- Too much excuses
- Too much abuse of power and personality
- Self-promoting
- Extreme defence of person and properties
- Lacked of integrity
- Narrow minded and opinionative
- Too much public Criticisms etc.
Like other social concepts, several volumes are available in the school Libraries and so many articles abound on Leadership. Few minutes on the internet on Leadership will bombard us with writings on Leadership. On daily basis, Leadership Summits and Workshops are organized. This is because, the success or failure, collapse or survival, progress or retrogress of a business, organization and even a state depends largely on the Leadership of such places. What then is Leadership and what does it mean for someone to lead? What make a person a leader, and what makes one leader bad and another good?
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
According to Udoyen (2019), a study population is a group of elements or individuals as the case may be, who share similar characteristics. These similar features can include location, gender, age, sex or specific interest. The emphasis on study population is that it constitute of individuals or elements that are homogeneous in description.
This study was carried out to examine the Leadership and the challenges of development in Nigeria’s fourth republic, 2015-2021. Osisioma Ngwa Local Government Area of Abia state form the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION
Two methods of data collection which are primary source and secondary source were used to collect data. The primary sources was the use of questionnaires, while the secondary sources include textbooks, internet, journals, published and unpublished articles and government publications.
METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
The responses were analysed using the frequency tables, which provided answers to the research questions. Also, hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistics.
VALIDITY OF THE STUDY
Validity referred here is the degree or extent to which an instrument actually measures what is intended to measure. An instrument is valid to the extent that is tailored to achieve the research objectives. The researcher constructed the questionnaire for the study and submitted to the project supervisor who used his intellectual knowledge to critically, analytically and logically examine the instruments relevance of the contents and statements and then made the instrument valid for the study.
CHAPTER FIVE
RELIABILITY OF THE STUDY
The reliability of the research instrument was determined. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to determine the reliability of the instrument. A co-efficient value of 0.68 indicated that the research instrument was relatively reliable. According to (Taber, 2017) the range of a reasonable reliability is between 0.67 and 0.87.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
The study was approved by the Project Committee of the Department. Informed consent was obtained from all study participants before they were enrolled in the study. Permission was sought from the relevant authorities to carry out the study. Date to visit the place of study for questionnaire distribution was put in place in advance.
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