Ogbe Henry Ejotubu

Keywords: Town-hall meeting, democracy, governance, accountability, rural development

Abstract

The paper examined town hall meeting as a strategy for public participation to ensure accountability of elected officials at the local government level in ensuring effective rural development in Nigeria. The paper adopted qualitative method of inquiry which used secondary sources of information. The 1999 Constitution as amended advocates for democratic governance at local level based on the 1976 reforms on local government which aim at bringing about rural development. Consequently, local-legislative councils are expected to promote and guarantee the local people’s participation in their government as well as to hold their elected officials answerable for their actions concerning rural development. Findings reveal that a higher percentage of the local people live in poverty due to lack of rural development that emanates from lack of accountability of the elected officials. The paper concludes that the lack of accountability at the local level is as a result of the imposition of officials on the people through electoral fraud, which make officials see no reasons to be accountable to the people of their localities but to their godfathers who aided them to electoral victory. The paper recommends that there should be conduct of free and fair elections at the local government level for the emergence of accountable-oriented officials toward the actualization of rural development. Also, town-hall meetings should be employed as a strategy of the people to hold their elected officials accountable at the local level.

Author Biography

Ogbe Henry Ejotubu

Department of Political Science, University of Delta, Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria

Email: [email protected]

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