Leadership Whoism: An Examination of Udofia’s Perspective in the Light of Nigerian Leadership Crisis

Itohowo Paul Ignatius, Francis Okon Ating, Oto-Obong John Udoeka

This paper is aimed at exposing the essential logical formula for leadership as posited by Christopher Udofia. Leadership is a very important subject of discourse in our societies. The reason for this is that there is a necessary and undeniable nexus between the quality of leadership and the developmental strides of a society. Although the problem of leadership is a universal one, this problem is very common in Nigeria, especially with the kinds of political leadership she has had post-independence. The questions then are: who is a good leader? What makes one a leader? Are leaders born or are they made? These and many others are the topical questions that are viewed from the perspective of Udofia. Udofia believes that a careful assessment of the ‘Golden Triad on Leadership’ can help in ramifying leadership challenges by positing the categorical fundamental criterion for becoming a leader. In this paper, we expose Udofia’s leadership philosophy, analyze it, and examine his logic of virtue-leadership correspondence which he extrapolates from the philosophical posits of the golden age philosophers, where the possession of virtue is seen as a conditio sine qua non for leaders. Finally, we situate Udofia’s leadership philosophy in the Nigerian space and examine its relevance to the leadership problems we have post- independence. The paper concludes that for Nigeria to prosper, her leaders need to be both morally and effectively competent.