***Call for Daily Ethics in Governance
Nigeria’s deepening leadership crisis is rooted not in youth failure or lack of technology, but in decades of stolen elections, weakened institutions and neglect of deliberate leadership development, governance advocates and lawmakers said yesterday in Abuja.
Speaking at the public presentation of Leadership 365, a new book by leadership scholar and development expert, Prof. Linus Okorie, Senator Ikechukwu Obiora warned that the country would remain trapped in underdevelopment unless it confronts the structural failures that have undermined accountable governance since independence.
Obiora rejected claims that moral decline among young Nigerians is the source of national decay, insisting that the real damage has been done by political elites who corrupted the electoral process and eroded public trust.
“The moral fabric of the younger generation has been battered by the conduct of corrupt leaders,” he said. “When leaders steal their way into office, they owe the people nothing. Elections are meant to transfer power to citizens. Once that process is compromised, accountability disappears and corruption becomes endemic.”
Tracing Nigeria’s crisis to the early post-independence era, Obiora argued that entrenched election rigging denied the country the emergence of legitimate, effective and conscientious leaders, weakening governance across sectors and fuelling insecurity, economic stagnation and social dislocation.
He dismissed technology-driven electoral reforms as insufficient, warning that no digital system can rescue a process overseen by compromised institutions.
“No technology can save an election if the institution conducting it is not truly independent,” he said, calling for constitutional reforms to establish a genuinely autonomous electoral management body insulated from executive influence.
Beyond electoral reform, Obiora stressed that sustainable progress depends on investing in leadership capital, arguing that the human spirit remains more powerful than technology or artificial intelligence.
“Nations that have made lasting progress invested heavily in their people,” he said. “Nothing transforms institutions and societies like a properly channelled human spirit.”
Also speaking, Senator Izunasor reinforced the argument that leadership is defined by service, not by political office or personal influence. He said Nigeria’s challenges would persist unless leaders embraced selflessness and mentorship as core values.
“Leadership is not something you assume because you are in public office,” Izunasor said. “True leadership is service. Selfishness and leadership cannot coexist.”
He urged experienced leaders to mentor younger Nigerians, describing deliberate mentorship as essential to rebuilding public ethics and restoring confidence in governance.
The book’s author, Prof. Okorie, said Leadership 365 was conceived as a practical response to declining reading culture and shallow engagement with leadership ideas. Drawing on more than three decades of research and mentoring across Africa, he explained that the book is structured around 365 short chapters, each focused on a distinct leadership competency to be studied one day at a time.
“Many people no longer have the patience for dense texts,” Okorie said. “This book allows you to read one chapter a day, reflect deeply, and apply a leadership skill. In one year, you gain 365 competencies.”
He described the book as a daily leadership manual for political leaders, corporate executives, public servants and emerging leaders, designed to shift readers from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and improve performance incrementally.
Okorie also called for the adoption of Leadership 365 as a general studies text in schools and universities, arguing that early exposure to leadership thinking could have transformative effects on values, character and capacity.
“Imagine a child engaging leadership principles from secondary school through university,” he said. “The impact would be profound.”
Together, the speakers converged on a single message: that Nigeria’s path to renewal lies not in rhetoric or technology alone, but in honest elections, strong institutions and the daily cultivation of ethical, service-driven leadership.
“Until Nigeria fixes its elections and invests deliberately in leadership development,” Obiora said, “it cannot fix its future.”
