TY - JFULL AU - Barnabas M. Suleiman and Ifeanyi P. Onyeonoru and Egharevba E. Matthew PY - 2015/10/ TI - Demagogues and the Challenge of Democratic Politics in Nigeria T2 - International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences SP - 3277 EP - 3282 VL - 9 SN - 1307-6892 UR - https://publications.waset.org/pdf/10004126 PU - World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology NX - Open Science Index 105, 2015 N2 - This article interrogates the question of leadership in the context of the antidemocratic tendencies of Africa’s political leaders. The African continent has continued to struggle behind other continents of the world as a result of the failure of leadership to address the political and socio-economic challenges of the continent. Thus, bedevilled with the challenges of development, the African continent is in need of people-centred leadership. However, as the continent struggles to overcome its political and development predicaments, it is stuck in the dystopia of demagoguery that promises nothing but apocalyptic future for its teeming population. Thus, despite the enormous resources available in Africa, leadership failures have made progress difficult to achieve. At the centre of this leadership failure are demagogues: a set of leaders who have influence over a large number of people but take advantage of that influence to undermine democracy and good governance. Citing various examples across Africa, the article describes how demagogues, especially in democratic countries, have become the problem of the African continent in its quest to achieve democratic progress, development and peaceful progress. ER -