JOURNAL OF LIAONING TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
(NATURAL SCIENCE EDITION)
LIAONING GONGCHENG JISHU DAXUE XUEBAO (ZIRAN KEXUE BAN)
辽宁工程技术大学学报（自然科学版）
LOCAL GOVERNMENT THE THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT IN NIGERIA: IMPACTS AND CONTRIBUTION TO PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AT THE GRASS ROOT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Samuel Olabode DADA
Abstract
The study was designed to assess the Local Government and its impacts, contributions to promoting Democracy at the grass root level in Nigeria. The study looked into the various definitions of local government and the conceptual review was done. It was revealed that there was no definite universal definition of local government that will be acceptable by all scholars. The historical development of local government and its creation by successful governments in Nigeria were observed. The colonialist employed local government as mere instrument of politics of exploitation. The local government reform of 1976 carried out by the Military government brought in a uniform local government administration that was enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. Today we have 774 Local Governments Areas in the country, with some Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) that were created for political reasons. Democratic Participatory School of Thought Theory underpinned the study. Local Government and its participatory activities in government has been seeing in fielding officials both at the ward levels and at the local government levels. The role of Local Government in promoting democracy at the grass root cannot be overemphasize. A lot of its functions include: The Nigerian local government has constituted an effective instrument for initiating, promoting and executing rural development policies, projects and programmes. It has also been involved in broader issue of nation building sustainability. The strength of these obvious facts in embracing grass root democracy can be seen or viewed from the dynamic nature of the international community; coupled with the principle of inter-dependent nature of the various units in the global world system.
Keywords: Constitution, Government, Democracy, Human resources, Administration, Development and Sustainability