Abstract

Either due to good leadership or autocracy, one thing stands out, ‘developmental state’ was a success in most of Asian countries, while its discredit is loud in Africa. As a case of all-round failure, virtually all strata of the society have had their blames in the historical trivialization of political participation, governance and development in Nigeria. While some politico-economic paradigms, contingent upon certain conditions are promotive of development than others, depending on prevailing systems, almost all paradigms can fail as well. Following a regionally contagious shift in political alignment and development orientation, this paper, adopting analytic approach, assesses the attempt at reinventing developmental state paradigm by the new ‘progressives’ in Nigerian southwest. It argues that what presently obtained can still fail if challenges bothering on ‘intergovernmental relations’, ‘institutional rationality and tenacity’, targeting of social bases of development, and ‘motives of the cult of leadership’ are not prudently availed.

Key words: Developmental state, democracy, development planning, cult of leadership motives, poverty, intergovernmental relations, social bases of development, Nigeria.