AN APPRAISAL OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS AN AGENT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (A CASE OF OWERRI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL)

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION
  • BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

One of the major objectives of any nation is to promote the welfare of the citizenry. The basic of these problems of local government agent of community development is the need to formulate policies and programmes that will rise and sustain the people’s quality of life. To stress the sanctity of these objectives, Nigerian’s through their respective, entrenched this in the fundamental objectives and directives principle of state policy”. These ideas are supposed to act across the three levels of government in Nigeria because more Nigerians live in Imo state. The rural are as have contributed to remain underdeveloped and the forces that have helped to debase the periphery and which have kept to area physically, economically, socially and politically. “wretched” need to be redressed local government is the level of government in Nigeria that is closest to the unseen million trapped in poverty”. [Bell 1 man 1990-54] by virtue of its rural base in most notion states, it acts as a vehicle for rural inquiring and transformation. As the last tier of the national government is better place to bring about the require development projects by way of mobilizing the human and material resources and for better communication between the government and the governed. The Imo state has continued to serve as the food basket of Nigeria. And an appropriate self conscious and determined effort is not directed towards the upliftment of the wretched condition of the Imo state. The development of the nation state will continue to lay behind. There can therefore be no other way of stimulating national development without developing the rural communities first. These has been enclosed by Bell – I man (1990:45) where he said that;

These are million of unseen people tapped in powerless, compared with urban areas, there is comparative underdevelopment in the Imo state. Since Owerri municipal local government Area involved both the legislative and executive process operating under democratic principle of popular participation of local; people in the management of their local affairs, it is expected to make policies and play roles that could facilitates and ensure an accelerated development of its rural communities.

• STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Local government is generally regarded as a powerful instrument of community development. The functions which are allocated to local government are those which are designed to provide services of socio-economic and political development within the local government area. This is why since colonial epoch in Nigeria the local government has gained the attention of successive governments in terms of reform circulation and statutory allocation. The latest is being the 1976 and 1988 local government reforms. But in spite of all these reforms the efficiency and effectiveness of the local government council at accelerative rural community development is yet to be achieved.

The focus of this research work is to identify these problems as they affect the performance of the local government council. This research work intends to find out who is responsible for this back work movement. Is it the central government, the state government of the local government council

• OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this research is to examine the problems of local government in Imo state in Nigeria and to attempt at identifying the factors that militate against effective performance of local government in Imo state inquiring. Moreover, this research also attempts to know if the expectations of the policy makers who created local government as the third tier system of agent of community development have been actualized or has it been defeated.

• RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In order to carryout this research study some research question were ask;

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