Moral Development Of Nigerian Political Successors And Its Implications On Governance In Nigeria
Keywords:
Ethics, governance, moral, moral development, politics.Abstract
The success or failure of a nation to a large extent depends on the moral development of its political leaders and their successors. The leaders usually develop their successors to take after them. Given this background, the paper reviewed some concepts that are central to the study, such as moral, ethic, governance and politics among others. It also examined Kohlberg's moral development theory which is found to be central to the discussions in this paper. The expected qualities of followers and that of leaders were also examined. The paper investigate the political settings vis- a-vis the structure of Nigeria political environment. This is with a view to examine the characteristics of Nigeria political environment and determine its moral standard in relation to their effects on the political environment. The paper found out that the moral standard of Nigeria politicians or political leaders and their followers is morally bankrupt. The Nigeria political environment is found to be characterised by immoral behaviour such as corruption in the area of vote buying, certificate forgery and other unethical vices. The resultant effect of this is utter neglect for the provision of basic amenities leading to poor national development especially in the area of socio-economic development. The paper also found out that the apathy of the public to politics has also encourage the immoral attitude of the political leaders. The paper recommended the adoption of Kohlberg's moral development theory in training political followers. Also, it was recommended that individual of impeccable characters should be made to head institutions such as the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFFC), Independent and Electoral Commission (INEC), and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to mention a few. Furthermore, it recommended among others that moral education as well as political education should be emphasized in the primary and secondary schools.
