The post-independence history of Nigeria has been dominated by failed attempts at socio-economic and political development. The elite class has largely been responsible for this failure being at the helms of government affairs and having presided over public policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. This paper scrutinizes the elite class in Nigeria and its position in the development conundrum in the context of pervasive corruption. Deploying secondary sources of evidence, within historical-comparative research methodology, it was discovered that elitist greed and a generally corrupt governance milieu has been the bane of development in Africa’s most populous state. It suggested that if the nation is to exit the current crises, then it should embrace the developmental state paradigm, recruiting a political leadership that is developmental-oriented while also restructuring the entire governance architecture to ensure fairness which will reduce both underclass discontent and ethnic nationalities agitations. Keywords: Elite, Class, Corruption, Development, Nigeria..