ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTONOMY ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN MACHINA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS YOBE STATE

This research work is to examine the impact of local government autonomy on rural development in machina local government areas yobe state. The study achieved its objectives. Related literature was reviewed, the sample size of 100c respondents was drawn for the study. Questionnaires was used for data collection. Simple random sampling techniques was adopted in selecting the respondents. The researcher used descriptive statistics in presenting the data. The study revealed that inadequate funding has been the bane of rural development in in Study Areas. This is attributable to a lot of draw – backs arising from untold interruptions and controls by the higher tiers of government (i.e. State and Federal). It was also discovered that, the study areas has very little or no financial autonomy under the period of study. Were they are acting higher tiers (i.e. State and Federal) influences. This seriously affected their performance in service delivery towards rural development. Again, it was found that, rural communities under study are not actively and efficiently mobilized and participated in community development process. To this, rural communities, particularly in Study Areas would not have capacity to identify and responding to rural communities issues and problem towards rural development. It was revealed that, non in-inclusion of rural dwellers in formulation and implementation of rural development programmes and project also contributed to the failure and sustenance of most development efforts of the study areas. In fact, majority of the interviewees asserted that, some projects completed are not used by the rural populace as they don‟t meets any of their immediate interest. It was revealed according to some of the local government staff during the interview that, the major problem is purely leadership in the study areas. They further submit that most signed and collected money on projects that do not exist and inflate the cost of the few executed ones for their self-fish gains. This explains why many of the projects keep on reappearing in the lights of contracts awarded by the local government’s areas. Study recommended that Consistency should be maintained in the area of internal training which seems to be cheaper and reachable for the staff than the external which takes a lot of rigor to get approval for one. Management should make refund a priority to those who spent their own money to embark on the training programme before approval, he institution should make journals both local and international more readily available and accessible to academic staff. Also a conducive environment and literature site should be made available for researches