This study investigates the persistent crisis in Nigeria’s educational standards from 1990 to 2024, emphasizing the role of leadership and policy implementation. Over the decades, the sector has suffered from decaying infrastructure, poor funding, policy inconsistency, teacher shortages, and declining learning outcomes. Despite various reforms, a significant gap remains between policy formulation and implementation. This gap is largely attributed to weak leadership and governance failures across federal and state levels. The study explores how political and institutional leadership has influenced educational policy, evaluated the consistency and effectiveness of key reforms, and identified the governance challenges that have hindered progress. It adopts Transformational Leadership Theory and Policy Implementation Theory as analytical frameworks. These theories help explain the misalignment between leadership intentions and actual outcomes, especially in a complex policy environment like Nigeria. Findings reveal that the education sector has been plagued by weak political will, frequent policy shifts, corruption, and inadequate teacher development. These issues are compounded by the exclusion of critical stakeholders from policy processes, resulting in solutions that do not address local realities. To mitigate these challenges, the study recommends institutionalizing policy continuity, enhancing leadership accountability through independent oversight bodies, and increasing investment in teacher training and welfare. It also emphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement and robust monitoring systems for informed and adaptive policymaking. Addressing these issues holistically is essential for reversing the decline in Nigeria’s educational standards and fostering sustainable development.