Towards Improving Local Government Administration on the Rural Poor in Nigeria: The Role of Women and Private Media

Abstract

One of the basic objectives of establishing local governments in Nigeria is to bring about development and improvement in the standard of living of the people at the local level. Though many calls have been made on the issue of decentralization of authority at this level, the fact remains that most of the activities of this arm of government in their present semi-autonomous state are urban focused, thus increasing the concern on further marginalisation of poverty stricken rural communities. This study, therefore, examined the role of women and private media in the design, execution, monitoring and evaluation of local government projects/development programmes in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling was used: this involved dividing Oyo State into regions where Ifedapo representing Oke-Ogun was purposively selected. Using a threshold population of less than 20,000 rural areas in the region were identified and ten communities were randomly selected from the marginalised communities in terms of social and economic development using interview guide and direct observation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result of the study indicated that most of the empowerment programmes and development projects of the government eluded the selected communities due to political interference. The rural communities were also not privileged to have access to information about most of the projects and the activities of the private media were not extended to these communities in this regard. The study therefore concluded that participatory local governance be given priority. It was recommended that the rural women and the private media should collaborate and be involved in the design, execution, monitoring and evaluation of local government projects and development activities.


Keywords: Rural poverty, marginalisation, women, private media, empowerment