Rural Development Problems in Nigeria

Most Nigerians dwell in rural areas, where they experience, on a daily basis, the stark realities of underdevelopment. The primary goal of this book is to analyze rural backwardness in all its manifestations: declining agricultural exports and food production; poor transportation and health-care delivery; rural-urban migration; lack of industrialization; and disorderly spatial development. It is an attempt to address Nigeria's underdevelopment from a multi-disciplinary approach and it examines in detail the recent changes in rural areas. The conclusion calls for measures that pay attention to basic human needs, the involvement of the rural dwellers in the formulation and implementation of policies that affect them, adequate budgetary allocation to rural areas, and the transformation of local governments as effective agents of rural development.