Local Government Autonomy as a Strategy for Socio-Economic Development of Rural Communities in Nigeria

Abstract

The main thrust of this paper is to explain local government autonomy as a strategy for effective rural development in Nigeria. The study sees local government as the government with basic responsibility of transforming the rural communities in Nigeria. Although the local government is found wanting due to the meddling of other tiers of government on its activities, hence, the desirability for local government autonomy for its effective functioning. The study used primary and secondary data to achieve its objective. 400 copies of the questionnaires were administered to two local governments each of the four selected states in Nigeria. 390 copies of the questionnaires were retrieved without error and used for the study. The data were presented in tabular and percentage frequency. Sustainable development theory was adopted as the theoretical framework to discuss the relevance of durable socio economic development of the rural people and the areas without compromising the future of the rural people.  The findings indicates that political, financial and administrative autonomy of the 774 local governments is needed to enable the local governments achieve its objective for effective and durable rural communities’ development in Nigeria.

Keywords: Local government autonomy, socio economic development , rural community, rural development, sustainable development .