CORRUPTION WITHIN THE POLITICAL GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA: THE PLACE OF PLATO’S PHILOSOPHER KING

Abstract

The world today is in the grip of several complications such as, corruption within the leadership circle and within the citizenry, clashes within and among the nations, climate change and global warnings etc. Such situations require cerebral leaders to facilitate collaboration among the international communities and as well enable mutual support of the citizenry and their leaders to be able to surmount these myriads of challenges effectively. This paper intends to convey the correlation between corruption and political governance in Nigeria, arguing that the major impediment to progression and development in Nigeria is corruption emanating from political governance as exemplified in policy formulation, implementation and general leadership. The aim is basically to apply the model of Philosopher king given by Plato to deal with problems of contemporary Nigeria leadership system. The objective of the study is to recognize the concept of Philosopher king and in what manner it continues to be relevant and valuable notwithstanding variations in the context and framework in which it was originally propounded. A combination of both hermeneutical and qualitative method of analysis of the concept with detailed study of Plato’s political philosophy are used in the study. The study learns that the politics and governance in Nigeria have writhed for too long in the hands of political jobbers, specialized funds looters and individuals with questionable characters. The study recommends that despite some flaws of the concept of Philosopher king by Plato, it still can go a long way in resolving existing leadership and corruption challenges in Nigeria. Thus, the visions of Plato can be best appreciated by having the understanding of the context in which the discourse was advocated and learning from such references which also stays applicable in the present setting.