Leadership, Change and Religion: Nigerian Experience

Abstract

Change is ubiquitous in any society, especially a society that strives hard to fulfill human needs. The Nigerian experience is no exception. Nigeria has undergone various systems of political changes. These include parliamentary feudalism to military dictatorship as well as presidential aristocracy. Yet, none has reasonably met the yearnings of the society. This can be attributed to the fact that the word "leadership" is often misunderstood. Rather than leading by example, dictatorship and anarchy have eaten deep into the fabric of the elected and appointed leaders both in the church and political circles. Nigeria has witnessed succession of changes of power from north to the southwest. from southwest to the south-south and back to the north.Unfortunately, these changes in leadership have not been of any benefit to the common men, but those in the corridor of power. In the midst of this disturbing socio-political upheaval, the intention of this paper is to examine Jesus' attitude to leadership and socio-religious situations of his period and what Nigerian leaders can learn from it. The researchers made use of historical method in this work. The paper discovered that Nigerian political leaders are selfcentered; religious institutions have lost focus; and that Jesus exhibited servant-leadership attitude towards his followers. It is therefore recommended that political leaders should have servant-leadership attitude and that the Church should wake up to her responsibility.