Local Government Administration and Rural Development in Nigeria

Abstract

The local government as third tier of government was created in order to render essential services to the people at the grassroot thereby bringing about rural development. It is also a government tier that most accessible to the people. Because there are usually no tangible developmental projects embarked upon by the local governments, the people are hardly involved in any developmental activities. This study was therefore carried out to examine the performance of Ovia South – West Local council and identify major impediment of local government in rural development. The survey method was adopted for the study using primary and secondary sources of data collection. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed and 450 were retrieved for final analyses. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested, using the simple percentage for data analyses. The finds reveal that the performance of local government is very poor in rural development efforts. The study also reveals that infrastructures are not adequately provided at the grassroot and that the calibre of workers at the grassroot government are not doing well enough to enhance rural development. The paper amongst others, recommended that local government should create consciousness and awareness for the rural dwellers to participate in development activities of their local government, and that the local government workers should be trained and re-trained regularly to be more effective and efficient in serving the people, that projects being executed should be beneficial to the people and that project should be awarded to contractors on merit.