GRASSROOT PARTICIPATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA (AN ASSESSMENT OF GOMBE LGA 2011-2015)

Abstract

This study assess the impact of grass root participation in national development, their effectiveness in contributing to the socio economic development of Gombe local government and Nigeria at large, it focus on the way and manner in which the grass-root development influences the national development in Nigeria, and the role of local populace in identifying and tapping the available endowed natural resources by either playing a custodianship role, utilization of the available resources, paying tax to government or positioning the country’s outlook as a producers of world competitive resources. Notwithstanding, the economic activities of Nigeria is boosted by the effort of rural dwellers and hence the central government is design to provide basic necessities of life to the entire citizens regardless of their area of living, the developmental project such as provision of roads, healthcare facilities, portable drinking water, electrification etc is presently seen in almost all the remote locations by either the federal, state or local government. While problems of non participation, non utilization and mismanagement of resources by the local populace in developing their communities constitutes a major problems, both primary and secondary sources of data collection and a descriptive survey design method is used, where 80 structured questionnaires were distributed to the people within Gombe local government, data collected from them was analyzed using simple percentage and same presented in a tabular form for interpretation, chi square was used to test the hypothesis. the findings of the study revealed among others the recommendations that government should intensify effort in encouraging people at grass root level to participate in developing their communities, make provision for educating them so that they will bear the custodianship of their communities, a better and well intended policies and guidelines should be put in place.