CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA DEMOCRACY: IS PLATO’S PHILOSOPHER-KING AN OPTION?

Abstract

work looks at the concept of Philosopher-King and its adequacy as a solution option for the continued crisis of leadership within the Nigerian polity. Using the method of hermeneutics, it examines the history of leadership failure in Nigeria as well as Plato’s concept of Philosopher-King within the context of the Republic and which he considers a sinequanon for the emergence of a just society. While the present work acknowledges that the concerns of Plato remain valid today, namely, the need for creation of a just state in a country bedeviled by unjust structures and subjugation; the need for the application of principle of functional specialization in a polity where interest, ethnic and religious considerations have eclipsed meritocracy and capacity in the name of quota system; it however, finds very disturbing the evident institutionalization of personality contained in the concept and which would ultimately degenerate into oligarchic autocracy as the philosopher steps into the murky waters of politics. In failing to take care of the question of building a formidable political institution that acts as checks and balances to the Plato’s strong person of the intellect; and in relegating the masses whose opinions do not account at all, this write-up considers Plato’s conceptualization of the Philosopher-King as it is, as inadequate for the Nigerian democracy, without prejudice to the subsisting question of the real possibility of actualizing such a system.