ASSESSMENT ON THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT USING JOS AS CASE STUDY

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: The desire of the rural population to participate directly in the affairs of their communities is driving the rising demand for local government in every corner of the world. Local government is, in reality, as ancient as mankind, as it is the only form of human administration that has existed throughout history. The notion of human society is cloaked in the requirement of community development through a recognized local administrative system that culminated in local government administration As opined by Enemuo (2016). Despite contemporary advancements in politics, economics, technology, communication, transportation, and other disciplines, local government has endured as a tool of grass-roots and national growth.

The 1976 local government reforms in Nigeria defined local government as governance at the local level implemented by representative councils formed by law to exercise particular functions within defined areas (Adedeji 2015). These rights should offer the council significant control over local issues, as well as the personnel, institutional, and budgetary authority to start and direct the provision of services. It also exists to determine and implement projects that complement the activities of the state and federal governments in their respective areas, which is to be accomplished through the active participation of the people and their traditional institutions, so that local initiative and response to local needs and conditions are maximized.

According to the United Nations Office of Public Administration, local governments should have jurisdiction over local affairs, including the authority to levy taxes or compel labour for specified objectives. It further stipulates that people who would rule such institution should be elected or locally selected. Local governments must also be legally established (Ola, 1984). According to Aliyu & Kohen (2019), Local government is the third-tier of government in Nigeria vested with the responsibility of transforming various communities into effective socio-economic and political advanced structures for national development that is the improvement of the quality of life of the people (Adedeji 2015). As a result, the local government system is an administration of rural regions by individuals who are familiar with the demands of their community. This style of administration is based on the premise that because the people are aware of the requirements of their community, they will do all possible within available resources to improve the place ((1979 constitution Federal Republic of Nigeria).

Because of its critical role in mobilizing local resources for real socioeconomic and political changes in rural regions, local government is an agent of grass roots development. The role of local government in rural development. The role of local government in rural development may be traced back to the time of community-based attempts to build individual societies, when local governments were utilised to mobilise all resources for development (Adamolekun, 2017). As a result, every government strives to influence the lives of its population through economic, social, and political development projects. According to early academics, this creates the basis of collaboration and reciprocity between government and society, resulting in the preservation of that society's well-being. When members of a society combine their efforts and resources, they achieve their common goals more effectively. The capacity of government or political institutions to execute such fundamental responsibilities as providing comforts and security to the governed must thus be the source of legitimacy (Adedeji, 2015).

Every government owes its citizens the duty to develop them through the supply of portable water, health care, education, roads, food, housing, and any socioeconomic factors. Such provisions must also contain a structure that allows people to have a voice in what they get and how they obtain it. Members of society can be expected to execute their own civic obligations to the government and society at large in this regard. Legitimacy refers to the system's ability to foster and sustain the conviction that the present political institutions are the best fit for the society's growth and development. Groups consider a political system as legitimate or illegitimate based on how well its principles align with theirs (Enemuo 2016).

The establishment of three levels of government in Nigeria is thus anticipated to respond to these roles or obligations. While the three tiers have different geopolitical bounds of jurisdiction, they all have some shared obligations for the growth of the country in general and their distinct regions of influence in particular. In terms of human resources and financial resources, the federal government is the wealthiest, followed by the states, while municipal governments are the lowest. However, the latter is the most accessible to the bulk of the country's citizens, particularly those living in rural regions. The local government administration is most suited for the development of rural areas that are far removed from both the state and central governments.

The Federal government said through Musa Shehu Yar’adua in the foreword to the guidelines for local government reforms (1976):

“In embarking on these reforms, the federal military government was essentially motivated by the necessity to stabilize and rationalize government at the local level. This must of necessity entail the decentralization of some significant functions of the state government to local in order to harness local resources for rapid development. The federal military government has therefore decided to recognize local governments as the third tier of governmental activity in the nation”

Local government should do precisely what the word government implies that is government at the grass roots or local level. He went further to say that, the reforms are intended to entrust political responsibility to where it is most crucial and most beneficial, that is, to the people. These local governments have remained integral parts of the administration of the country from the colonial times and have continued to remind the people of the state and central government. Most times they have always been composed of local people who the members of the society can identify and relate with, culturally. This explains the constant clamour for their creations by rural communities. There are no institutions in this country, which are  potentially more capable and including physical infrastructural facilities that local government councils. Local government represents the generally accepted fact of political life that all the functions of government cannot be run on the basis central administration alone. It consequently represent the need for political participation and fro convenience (Hashim, 1981). This is true in recognizing the fact that apart from bringing the government closer to the people which a popular cliché often used by government officials, local government are better positioned to understand the development needs of the communities.

In spite of the existence of local government administration in Nigeria, development in the rural areas has continued to remain a mirage. In almost every rural community, there is dearth of portable water, health care delivery facilities, accessible roads and good schools, among others and also infant mortality rate and maternal deaths are on the rampage.

Mensah and Ojowu (1989) opined that the rural areas in the third world countries have remained backward and static at a time when the global economy has experience and is still experiencing tremendous forward movement. Indeed, it is poverty level of the rural communities occasioned by this lack of development that has earned Nigeria a place among the world’s poorest nations in spite of our huge materials and human resources. The United Nations through its human development index (HDI) has consistently rated Nigeria among the poorest nations of the world. This poor state of the nation, emanated essentially, from the rural communities where over 85% of the population resides in the rural areas (Avichi, 1995), states that it was estimated by World Bank (1990) that over 1.15billion people in developing countries were living below the poverty line (US $350 per annum) and majority of these dwell in rural areas which constitute about 80% of their national populations.

Ijere (1989), observed that, Nigeria’s rural poor constitute the other Nigeria with poverty linked characteristics, lacking purchasing power enough to maintain a minimum standard of living and they are the victims of collective poverty in contrast to pockets or “Islands” of underdevelopment, the American Style which are surrounded by regions of abundances. This situation clearly generates apathy towards government as in number of rural communities, quite a sizeable percentage of the population do not bother about government and issues emanating from official quarters. The level of mobilization is low and there is little or no consolation with the communities on any issues. This trend to question the rationality of the establishment of local government administration, which should act as a medium for rural development. An examination of the existence of local government administration from colonial times reveal that successive government have handled the issue of rural development with less than piquant approach. Local governments instead of being used as tools for effective rural transformation, tend to be used for purposes other than social development. Some reasons that csan be advanced for this sad development is the fact that Before (1976), no properly articulated rural development policies have always been introduced on the communities by government officials without their sustainability being covered. The essence of this study was to establish the role local government on rural development in Jos South Local Government Council

1. 1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Majority of Nigerians live in the rural communities, which have failed to witness any significant development, despite the strategic positions the local governments occupy in the scheme of affairs. Poverty is endemic and a stark reality that people die from unpreventable ailment. Farming and tin mining, the main occupations of the people is declining and, the quality of primary education has fallen, health care delivery and access roads are in deplorable conditions.

Local government autonomy means that the local government is elected at the local level and operated independently of the state and federal government. The local government is no longer an appendage or field office of the state government. But in Nigeria today, local government lack autonomy as a result of interferences by both the state and the federal governments. They lack the freedom to make their own laws, rules and  regulations, formulate, execute and evaluate their own plans and the right to recruit, promote, develop and discipline its own affairs.

Over the years efforts have been made to reform the local government system and to increase the participation of the people. Despite these reforms there are problems with the local government system. However, some of the problems associated with Jos South Local Government Area are peculiar to some of the problems of local government in Nigeria. These problems include among other things like insufficient funding or poor financial base to exercise complete independence in the provision of social services, lack of adequate human, material and financial resources both in terms of quantity and quality to carry out its own activities, corruption and poverty mismanagement of funds and lack of autonomy. In spite of development plans in Nigeria which dates back as far as 1946, local governments in Nigeria are still underdeveloped.