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2022-12
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Lead City University
Abstract
The main constraint to government’s effectiveness and efficiency in Nigeria as posited by analysts is the issue of structure. Therefore, this study focuses on how Nigeria can be re-structured for effective and efficient service delivery. The discourse favours developmental strategies directed at the grassroots and rural development, with local government as a major player. Thus, the study examines the national public policies/programmes performance on rural development as a development indicator. In the process, the study examines the role of public policy in governance, the status of local government within the federal structure, the effectiveness of local government as local development institutions, its level of involvement in selected national public policies and programmes on rural development, and the challenges facing local governments’ effective service delivery in Nigeria. In essence, using the decentralization conceptual framework, the study contributes towards agenda-setting for Nigeria restructuring and to the process of adopting new rural development strategies. The research method employs triangulation of the theory, data collection and analysis, while design of the study is case study. The population of the study is local governments in Oyo State. The sample is the senior staff in five relevant departments, using Multi-Sampling Technique. The instrument for primary data collection is questionnaire, while the supervisory agencies for the programmes provide the secondary data. The findings show that the Nigerian federal structure and the national public policies on rural development are centralized and state-centered. In addition, local government due to the structural deficiency are ineffective, hence national public policies/programmes on rural development underperform. Therefore, the study concludes that Nigeria needs a more devolved local government and a new policy framework to achieve development at the rural level. However, the study recommends a strong local government institution and decentralized national public policy processes for effective policy performance.
Keywords: Decentralization, Local Government, Public Policy, Policy Performance,
Rural Development
Word Count: 297
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Kate Turabian