The limits of charismatic authority and the challenges of leadership in Nigeria

Charismatic legitimation theory emerged in the 1960s as a framework for analysing the rise of personal leadership in developing countries. The theory fitted in quite well with the roles that post-independence leaders who had built large followership in the struggles for independence were expected to play in nation building and economic development. The failure to meet these expectations and, in particular, the development of charismatic legitimation into personality cults and unaccountable authoritarian rule has however led to critical reviews of the theory. This article reviews the theory in the light of the Nigerian experience and argues that given the character of the country's elite effective and accountable leadership cannot be left to the preferences and choices of leaders no matter how exemplary, messianic, heroic, or revolutionary they may be. The article makes a case for installing the requisite institutional correlates that are consonant with democracy, rule of law and accountability and capable of restraining the tendencies towards the personalisation of political power.