Institutional Arrangement to Forestry Development in the South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the institutional arrangement and their impacts on forestry development in South-western Nigeria. Primary data were collected from all the forest officers in charge of the 31 forestry administrative zones in the six states in the Nigerian south west, namely: Ekiti (four); Lagos (five); Ogun (four); Ondo (eight); Osun (six) and Oyo (four).One forest officer from each of the six state headquarters were interviewed using structured questionnaires. The data were analysed using Descriptive statistics and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (D). Results revealed that the institutional arrangement investigated in the Nigerian South-west have significant relationship (P< 0.01) with forestry development. These include regular staff training, planning unit, log control and finance. Although the state forestry service in South-western Nigeria had good institutional arrangement on ground, their execution was slow and haphazard due to inadequate funding and manpower availability and training.

Key words: Institutional Arrangement, Log control, Planning unit, funding, forest service