Good Local Government Management and Rural Development in Nigeria

The local government system in both the developed and developing world aims at developing the remote areas of their nations. For examples, the English committee system of local government management emphasizes the importance of elected representatives as a way of increasing efficiency, and promoting grassroots democratic governance, while the 1976 local government reforms in Nigeria encourage the abolition of kantoma or sole administratorship as a measure of promoting good local government management system. Notwithstanding the merits of these argumentations, Nigeria is still struggling to refocus attention towards completely discarding with the romance of transition local government management committees with the pitfalls of local government joint account system that suffocate rural development. In addressing the problem, 216 respondents participated in the study conducted through the exploratory research design, and the result showed positive relationship between the variables of the study. On the basis of the result, the study recommends that local government management in Nigeria should be guided by the provisions of the 1976 local government reforms and the provisions of the 1999 Constitution. The study was not exhaustive due to some limitations; therefore, further study could examine the relationship between local government management and the local government joint account system in Nigeria, to determine whether it is the best at this point of the nation’s development