In an atomistic society such as Nigeria, where irreconcilable socio-political forces like religion and ethnicity are parts of the elements of governance, leadership is challenged by a plethora of fundamental socio-political factors such as violence, inequitable democratic culture, poor human rights records, unemployment, high poverty and crime rates as indices of governance deficit which in turn affect national development. This study, therefore, examined leadership challenges and governance deficit in Nigeria between 2009-2019 while elucidating the qualifying issues of bad governance and the prospects for National development. The objective of the study included the examination of the indices of bad leadership and the prospect in which leadership and governance could attain positive trajectories to bring about development in Nigeria. In pursuance of this, the study arrogated the assumptions of the Social Contract Theory by Hobbs, Locke and Rousseau. These three perspectives are in agreement that in a polity. governance is basically a votive treaty between the state and its citizenry. The theoretical minimum and basic assumptions of the theories are relevant and applicable to the study due to its demonstrative ability in explaining that citizens' patriotism and loyally to the government is a function and consequences of good leadership and governance. Information from Textbooks, Academic Search Engines, and published Journals form the major sources for secondary data collection. While the historicized descriptive technique operates qualitative methods for data collection. The study engaged content analysis to exhume cold facts to support the argument that issues of leadership challenges and governance deficits in Nigeria are tangential to the autocratic character of colonial Nigeria, which operated autonomously from the Nigerian society and discounted from the developmental needs of the citizens. This discountenance has resulted in persistent, reoccurring and widespread bureaucratic corruption in the public sector since independence in 1960. The study suggests that Nigeria's laws against corruption should be strengthened and the economy reorganized in agreement with a revised and amended constitution if the developmental aspirations of Nigerians are to be kept in mind.