GRASSROOT DEMOCRACY AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION (A CASE STUDY OF OREDO LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF EDO STATE)

GRASSROOT DEMOCRACY AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION (A case study of Oredo Local Government of Edo State)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Democracy in its true meaning is synonymous with grassroots democracy. Grassroots democracy is a people/community – driven participation in elections, governance and decision making. Grassroots democracy can be seen as a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision making authority as practical is shifted to the lowest level of organization. Thus, a local government is a government at the grassroots level of administration meant for meeting peculiar grassroots need of the people (Agagu, 1997).

Appadorai (1975) also defined the local government system as government by the popularly elected bodies charged with administrative and executive duties in matters concerning the inhabitants of a particular district or place. Local government was further defined by Lawal (2000) as that tier of government closest to the people, “which is vested with certain powers to exercise control over the affairs of people in its domain”.

Local government is a system of public administration at a local level, charged with the responsibility of bringing the people at the grassroots closer to the government. The local government authorities in Nigeria operate in an atmosphere in which for reasons of high level of illiteracy, general despondency, and political disenchantment, their activities are somehow remote from media scrutiny and the watchful eyes of non-governmental organizations (Jega 2011).

GRASSROOT DEMOCRACY AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION (A case study of Oredo Local Government of Edo State)