Abstract
Trust in leadership with its culture of accountability, integrity, honesty, transparency, and other political virtues, is in constant struggle with the dominant politics that enthrones betrayal for selfish gain over national good. Consequent upon this ugly syndrome of betrayal, the nation has not only been affected politically, but, also, it has stunted the growth of the nation socially, economically, infrastructurally, and developmentally, leaving Nigeria on the verge of collapse as the resultant common good of leadership trust has been shortchanged with selfishness. The paper aimed to critically look into the political landscape of the Nigerian state which has thrown its principle of leadership trust into oblivion with a syndrome that characterized leadership at different levels, institutions, and agencies, as betrayers of some sort. To achieve this, the paper briefly made conceptual analysis of politics, leadership trust, and thirty pieces of silver. The paper evaluated Nigeria’s leadership terrain, and detects that politics in Nigeria is at a crossroads. Through some glaring political scenarios, the paper observed that betrayal is commonplace among political actors and institutions such as the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), the Judiciary, and others that should by law preserve the national glory in the global stage. The paper argued that if this leadership unevenness is sustained and left unchecked, it will not only undermine Nigeria’s leadership and political institutions, but, also, render the process of nationbuilding difficult, if not impossible. To avert this ugly situation, the paper recommended that Nigeria should strengthen its political institutions by implementing electoral reforms that promote accountability, fairness, and transparency.
Keywords: Politics, Leadership Trust, Thirty Pieces of Silver, Nigerian State.
Author Name(s):
Felix Chukwudi Onyemachi PhD
Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State,Nigeria
Department of Philosophy
onyemachifelix@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0009-0006-2720-630X
Amos Ameh Ichaba PhD
Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State,
Nigeria
Department of Philosophy
amos.ichaba@fulokoja.edu.ng
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8972-9520
DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23087478
Copyright © [2026] The Author(s). Published by the Journal of People and Worldviews (JPW). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are properly credited.