RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN AKWA IBOM STATE: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
There are no Universal accepted approaches to rural development. It is a choice influence by time, space and culture. The term rural development connotes overall development of rural areas to improve the quality of life of rural people. In this sense, it is a comprehensive and multidimensional concept, and encompasses the development the development of agriculture, community services and facilities and above all, human resources in rural areas (Dreze and Sen, 2002).

Rural development has always been an important issue in all discussions pertaining to economic development, especially of developing countries, throughout the world. In the developing countries and some formerly communist societies, rural masses comprise a substantial majority of the population (Chauhan, 2014) According to Sam (2014). The policy makers in most of the developing economic in recognizing the essence of rural transformation, have been implementing a host of programmes and measures to achieve rural development objectives which is to raise the economic and social level of the rural people.
After independence, majority of countries neglected rural development and focused on the development of urban areas which to them are the first point of contact of any nation. It was only in the wake of outbreaks of famine and various diseases which challenged the living condition of the urban dwellers that government took up this subject.
Until 1990s, rural development strategies were concentrated on the growth of a modern sector through recourse to fertilizers, improved seedling, irrigation and mechanization (Lacroix, 2011).

Asian Development Bank (2014) asserted that rural development has become one of the major aims of various assistance/intervention programmes of both individual developing countries and multilateral institutions/donors. Over the past five decades, Nigeria has never been short of programmes and reforms aimed at alleviating the failing rural economy, livelihood, insecurity and other specific policies associated with poverty alleviation and rural community sustainable development. The Document of Federal Republic of Nigeria at 50 (2010) illustrated that majority of these programmes developed complications over the years. Since Nigeria gained her political independence in 1960, there has been a great impetus attached to the rural community development as a factor that advances the overall socio-economic development of the developing countries of the world. It is this reality as highlighted by Alege (2005) that has made the government at different times to set up various programmes and specialized credit institutions in an attempt to transform and develop rural areas in all its ramifications hence moving rural dwellers for abject poverty to economic and social prosperity. He added that some of those programmes and credit institution are on-going, some are moribund and others have gone with the regimes that initiated them. Expatiating further Ibietan and Oghatar (2013) noted that successive governments have indicated desire to transform the country, be it in terms of provision of infrastructure, human capacity development and even in the realm of social and political development. In this wise, Nigeria has experimented with several development plans from pre-independence era till date, yet the needed transformation has continued to elude its citizenry inspite of the robust plans.
According to Okoli (2004) in Onah (2004) Nigeria has many Development Plans which are 1st National Development Plan 1962 – 1968, 2nd National Development Plan 1970 – 1975, 3rd National Development Plan 1975 – 1980, 4th National Development Plan 1981 – 1985; the three rolling plans 1990 – 1992, 1993 – 1995, 1996 – 1998. There was also vision 2010 and Nigeria 20:2020, and the National Economic also vision 2010 and Nigeria 20:2020, and the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS).

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The wealth which built modern, be it in the era of dominance of agricultural commodities, or petroleum, was derived from the rural areas. Notwithstanding this, we have witnessed even in the not-100-distant past, the virtual neglect of these areas and their population. The recent phenomenon of massive importation of food and growth of slums in our major cities along with its attendant social, political and economic consequences have been the result of the collapse of the rural economy and infrastructure (Omeruah 1985, in Obiukwu, 1992). There is little doubt that Nigerians have reaped more deficits than dividends of rural development programmes. Okhakhuele and Opafunso (2013) claimed that several methods to remove rural – urban development gap have been carried out in Nigeria with little success, therefore the rural areas still remain highly under developed in comparison with the urban areas. They believed that numerous studies have been done on the causes and consequences of rural – urban migration and also related. The consequences of rural – urban migration on the urban centers to serious problems such as overpopulation, insufficient physical and social infrastructural amenities. Some of the past studies linked the causes of rural – urban migration to unbalanced government policies in support of urban development, response to disparities in income, employment and others socio-economic services available within the metropolitan and country sides, with the urban areas being fortunate.

It can be deduced that the cost of depopulation of rural areas is in the reduction of rural agricultural produce, decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), decline in the standard of living, detachment, isolation, underdevelopment, poverty, famine and malnourishment of the rural dwellers. Also observed is the absence of key performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the level of social progress Index (SPI) in the rural areas. Rural development policies in Nigeria are characterized by their emphasis on economic development strategies relegating to the background the core issues of absence of critical infrastructures. In a nutshell, intervention policies more often than not are urban bias, leaving the rural poor to continue in their hardship which is the main social and economic problems in rural areas.
Nigeria has never been bereft of good policies and programmes, the major problem has been poor implementation. The country have since independence experienced numerous rural community development programmes initiated by successive civilian and military governments beginning with the National Development plans which have not yielded desired results. Despite these rural development programmes adopted in Nigeria from independence to date, there are still paucity of socio-economic development and welfare of the people, hunger, high crime rate, wide spread poverty, social and spatial inequalities, rural-urban migration, inadequate healthcare services, lack of access to education, amongst others. There realities, which constitute a departure from theoretical ground, brings up reason for study to attempt to unveil reasons for observed departure.

1.3 OBJECTIVES FO THE STUDY
The major objective of this study is to analyze the effect of rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State. The specific objectives of the study include the following:
To examine the effect of rural development programmes on the rural dwellers with respect to the provision of basic social amenities.
To determine the major challenges to rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State.

1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
To evaluate the specific objectives, the following null hypotheses are formulated.
H01: There is no significant impact of rural development programme on the rural dwellers with respect to the provision of basic social amenities.
H02: There are no significant challenges to rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study shall be of great significant because it is expected to appraise the effect of rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State. Findings would form the basis for making recommendations that shall be useful to governments, private sector and businesses. Moreso, this work shall also serve as a source of reference material for further studies by other researchers in related fields.

1.6 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This study deals primarily with the collective effect of rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State. It intends to empirically examine the effects of rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State. The study is principally carried out to appraise the effect of rural development programmes in Akwa Ibom State. Major limitations to the smooth conduct of this study are: financial constraints (cost implications of the study), availability of reliable data and lack of sufficient time to carry out the study.