Abstract:
The study was carried out to investigate local government and rural development in Anambra State: 2006-2014. The study was necessitated due by worrisome trend in poor rural development as a result of lack of adequate commitment from the local government in effective development of grassroots. Four research questions and four null hypotheses were developed to guide the study. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was made up of 590,629 adults of 18 years and above in Anambra State. Taro Yamani was adopted in sampling 400 respondents that constituted the representative group from which data were collected for the study. The data for the study were obtained from both secondary and primary sources. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for answering the objectives while the null hypotheses were tested with t-test statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) at p < 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data collected and analysed, the study identified some challenges of local government in rural development in Anambra State, and that Local Government in Anambra State has not been playing its constitutional roles of development at the grassroots in the state. In addition, the study identified some effects of having non-democratically elected government at the grassroots and insufficient fund for the development of grassroots in Anambra State and possible solutions to the problems of local government in rural development in the state. Based on the findings, the study among others, recommended that the undue interference of the state governors should be eliminated to allow the local government chairmen govern and manage their resources to foster effective development at the grassroots, and that Federal government should ensure adequate financial allocation to the local governments in order to meet the needed rural developmental efforts at the grassroots level.
