LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF LAFIA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE.

Stephen S. Ojo, Agube A. Solomon & Danladi Mohammed

Department of Social Development

Nasarawa State Polytechnic, Lafia

Email: steve234_1@yahoo.com

Abstract: Local government is seen as a sole provider of services in the rural areas in Nigeria being the closest to the people. It has been assigned a strong role to play in the country in terms of rural development. However, this has been hinder due to poor mobilization of community resources and non involvement of the rural people in the process of rural development. The study is aimed at looking at the responsiveness to rural population to rural development by local government and seeks to appraise the participation of the community in the development and improvement of the rural communities. Structured questionnaire was employed for collection of data from fifty (50) respondents that were selected from the population through convenience sampling procedure. Frequent tables and percentage was use to analyze the data collected from the respondents. The study concludes that to enhance rural development, the local government authority should mobilize massive participation of the community and resources that are directed towards at improving social opportunities and basic capabilities of rural populace. It therefore recommends among others that projects for rural development should reflects the people felt needs, and the people should be involved in decision making process on matter that affect them directly.