The Role of Leadership Integrity in National Development of Developing Countries: The Case of Nigeria

The paper examined the role of leadership integrity in the national development of developing counties with focus on Nigeria as a case study by identifying issues in leadership integrity and national development; investigated the link between leadership integrity and national development and also assessed the role of leadership integrity in national development. The research made use of primary and secondary data for the work where random and purposive sampling techniques were adopted in the distribution of the questionnaire which was developed along the 5 point Likert Scale technique to 136 respondents but 105 were returned out of which 94 questionnaires were found useful representing 69% of the entire respondents that cut across all sectors of Nigerian economy in three different states of the federation namely Lagos, Ogun and Osun. Data obtained from the respondents were analysed by simple percentage and illustrated by table distribution as well as using descriptive, correlation and analysis of variance at 0.01 sig. level where leadership integrity is independent variable and national development is dependent variable. It was revealed that sound ethical environment will herald leadership integrity thus leading to keeping promise and implementation of development plans with positive cumulative effect on national development. It was suggested that there should be introduction of ethical value programmes in the curriculum of studies of students at all levels (primary, secondary and tertiary) to inculcate moral value system and that leadership in the country should embark on building of life styles of integrity that would take into consideration honesty, fairness, selfless service, reward for hard work, sincerity, discipline, trustworthiness and promise keeping.