RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME UNDER MILITARY REGIME

This study was undertaken to examine the involvement of the military regime in rural development programme and the implementation strategies it adopted in ensuring success in the areas of provision of water, electricity and construction of access roads. Given the above objective, it was assumed that military authoritative approach to policy implementation informed the success of DFRRI. Primary and secondary data obtained through interviews and questionnaire administered were used, and the four hypothesis tested were accepted. The result of the research indicated that DFRRI succeeded in bridging the gap created in rural development by previous efforts. Based on the outcome of the assumption tested, we concluded that DFRRI achieved its objectives by raising the living standard of rural dwellers by: construction of feeder roads, provision of potable water and rural electricity supply. To improve upon this, the study recommends among others that other efforts at rural development should draw lessons from DFRRI. Moreso, to achieve more meaningful rural development in Nigeria, there should be policy and programme continuity and future rural development programmes should have more comprehensive design that will fully address all human needs.

Rural Development Programme has been identified as a strategy and an instrument for ensuring sustained economic growth and development. Modern states have necessarily adopted it in tackling, transforming and improving the numerous problems of rural poverty, socio-economic inequality, hunger, illiteracy and disease. The large gap between potential economic opportunities and realized development in the rural sector is explained by the motivation of those who control the allocation of national resources and who allocate these resources thereby causing under-utilization, non-use and misuse of natural human and financial resources. It would appear that the greatest obstacle to successful rural development in Nigeria can be traced to the character of the political leadership that is not committed to rural transformation and the absence of a developmental ideology, Olatunbosun (2015).

Before the oil boom, agriculture was the main stay of Nigerian economy. These agricultural products that made Nigeria what it was during the pre-colonial, colonial and post – colonial periods were mostly from the rural areas. Therefore, in efforts at developing rural areas in the past, the Federal Government in the third National development plan introduced such programmes as the National Accelerated Food Production Programme (NAFPP), the River Basin Development Authorities and the Integrated Rural Agricultural Development Projects