Introduction
1.1 Background And Need For The Study
Local Government is constitutionally guaranteed as the third tier of government and it is used to develop the rural communities.
There should exist the strong influence of the government at the rural and indeed grass root level. Apart from giving fill and total sense of belonging to the people. It also establishes such government presence that helps to alleviate or eradicate poverty by providing the necessary needs of life such as water, electricity, education, health care delivery and general welfare to the rural dwellers. The local government has been established and introduced to achieve these substantial purposes towards the development of the rural people (Maduakor 2005:5).
The 1976 Local Government Reform in Nigeria was meant to tackle the issue pertaining to the welfare of the people in the rural communities which include poverty alleviation or eradication. Other reforms came after that of 1976. (Okafor 2004:28).
Successive governments have tried to address some of these issues through the enunciation of poverty related programmes.
Whether these programmes have succeeded in either alleviating poverty or not is a most point.
Suffice it to say, however, that the first of such programmes called National Accelerated Food Production Programme and the Nigeria Agricultural and Cooperative Bank were enunciated by Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s administration in 1972. Gen. Olusegun Obasajo enunciated operation feed the Nation in 1976. Shehu Shagari came up with Green Revolution in 1979 Muhammadu Buhari’s government introduced Go Back to Land programme 1983 Gen. Ibahim Babangida established the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure in 1986.
People Bank of Nigeria, community Bank of Nigeria. Better life Programme. The family support programme were introduced by Mariam Babangida and Mariam Sani Abacha.
Nonetheless, most of these poverty alleviation programmes suffered the same fate as a recent government assessment showed. It found that they all failed due largely to the fact that:
- They were mostly not designed to alleviate poverty.
- They lacked a clearly defined policy framework with proper guidelines for poverty alleviation.
- They suffered from polity instability, political interference, policy and macroeconomic dislocations.
- They also lack continuity (Agbo 2005:9)
Taking cognizance of this, the present Administration which had at inception in May 1999 set out poverty as one of its areas of focus, approved the blue print for the establishment of National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDs), State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (SEEDs), Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (LEEDs), and National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), a central coordination point for all anti-poverty efforts from the National level to the local Government Level by which schemes would be executed with the sole purpose of eradicating absolute poverty (Okafor, 2005:18).
It is paradoxical to hear that despite the fact that Nigeria is very rich in land, people, oil and natural gas resources, majority of its people are still very poor (Adigwe, 2002:1),
Therefore, it was based on the forgoing that the researcher decided to embark on upon the study.
1.2 Statement Of The Problem
Many problems have been responsible for the persistent increase in poverty rate in Nigeria and Bende Local Government of Abia State in particular. They are to be discussed in the following paragraphs.
One of the problems have been the poor revenue base of the Local councils, the local council’s functions are numerous yet it does not have adequate revenue to tackle its responsibilities. (Kalu, 2004:18).
The reforms introduced by both federal and state governments to deal adequately with poverty situation in the area have not always took the local government councils by surprise. The reason has been that were not part of the design of such reforms (Obilor 2000:45).
The rural communities are not given adequate opportunity to participate in the administration of their areas. They are ignored by the local government officials.
According to Alor (2002:16) the programmes designed to alleviate poverty in the area are not properly co-ordinated.
This has often led to non-realization of the objectives of the programmes. In some cases, some of these programmes are mere duplication of other projects.
Hence, if the local populace are given the chance to participate in the formulation and implementation of decisions it will be since-qua non to poverty alleviation in the area. Again most of these councilors representing them were selected and not elected.
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