The paper examines the extent to which inept and corrupt leadership have over the years, adversely affected the development of Nigeria as a nation. It argues that Nigeria’s failures have come about largely as a result of frequent leadership challenges; lack of ideology, policy reversal and weak institutional patterns. The study adopts descriptive approach and content analysis as its methodological orientation. The paper also examines the leadership selection process in Nigeria and found that the leadership selection process in Nigeria takes the imposition pattern and that Nigerian leaders have frequently come to their position with limited experience. Hence, the decline in moral and high level of corruption caused by bad policies, eroded professional standards and ethics and weakened the system of governance. The paper observes that for Nigeria to overcome the crises of leadership in the country, those on whom the burden of leadership will fall in the future must fully comprehend their responsibilities, duties and obligation. They must also be exposed and be prepared to face the challenges of leadership in developing society. Since the long term salvation of our country depends on the quality of its future leaders. The paper concludes that only leadership that has maximum empathy for the people can be relevant to the qualitative development of Nigeria.