Democracy and sustainable development in rural communities of Ebonyi State, Nigeria: The bridge-building role

Abstract

The inadequacies of socio-economic and infrastructural facilities in the rural communities in Nigeria has indeed, continued to pose serious challenge to the various governments in the country despite series of intervention programmes initiated and implemented to accelerate rural community development. The availability of these socio-economic infrastructure were believed to have enabled the rural community dwellers have access to the wide distribution of the benefits of the economic growth, significant improvement in the incomes and assets of the poor which would improve their living standard. This study therefore set out to examine the effect of democracy as a bridge builder in the provision of sustainable development in the rural communities in Ebonyi State. The study contends that sustainable development in the rural communities was a typical outcome of the application of democratic principle. It asserts that the practice of democracy is a determining factor in the sustainable development of rural communities in Ebonyi state. The study posits that democracy is the type of government that can guarantee the right of citizens to improved incomes and assets of the poor and to a large extent improve their living standard. The data for the study were collected from documentary sources, media commentaries, scholarly inputs and direct observation, while content analytical approach was adopted. The study adopted system’s theory as its framework of analysis. The study found out that the previous undemocratic governments approach to rural development were not consistent hence, it had no significant impact on the lives of the rural community dwellers. The paper concludes that democracy remains a viable bridge builder for community development in Ebonyi state even though the programme was not sustainable as the impacts were minimal.