2025-03-29https://repository.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/handle/123456789/37701In order to address the issue of leadership crisis in Nigeria, writers have criticized Aristotle’s notion of prudence, which he suggests in the Nicomachean Ethics as a crucial moral resource for leaders who are politically inclined. These criticisms have propelled the need for this research. According to the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual virtues help to identify what is just and amicable, while moral virtue helps to act out what is just and amicable. Therefore, the paper examines the lack of moral virtue as a bane in Nigerian’s political leadership, revealing that leaders who lack moral virtue are driven by lust for power, which has aggravated Nigeria’s challenges of corruption, selfishness, greed, misuse of power, exploitation and anarchy. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to explore the impact of lust on Nigeria’s political leadership and show its negative consequences at all levels of leadership. The Critical theory of sociology has been adopted as the theoretical framework in this study. The theory interrogates social structures and systems of power in the society in order to cause social change. According to its major proponent, Fuchs Christian, critical theory examines political economy, exploitation and domination in the societies. This research is expected to contribute to knowledge on moral directions for just and equitable political leadership in African societies.application/pdfH Social Sciences (General), PE EnglishArticle