Blueprints for Dynamic Leadership in Local Government Administration in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the problem of leadership in local government administration with particular reference to Nigeria. This is done against the backdrop of the belief that leadership has failed generally in the Nigerian public service and in the local government in particular. The work depicts local government as very useful in ensuring that governments are made responsive to the needs of the people and responsible to them. This noble idea tends to be marred by leadership crises manifested in dismal and poor performances of local government administration in Nigeria. Even the various reforms carried out since 1976 have not been able to make the system effective and responsible to developmental challenges. This paper identifies, in addition to poor leadership, the problems of corruption, overstaffing, heavy dependence on federally allocated revenue, insufficient financial resources, loss of autonomy etc in local government administration. The work is a descriptive study which relied on sources of secondary data and qualitative analysis. The paper discussed a number of strategies capable of enhancing dynamic leadership in local government administration. One of the strategies is that local government leaders should adopt the transformational style of leadership. Another is that the followership should be proactive.