CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1   BACKGROUND OF 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). The situation is further worsened by the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria which places the local government authorities under the crippling and domineering influence of the state governments that are only willing to concede limited autonomy to this tier of government. Thus, the Nigerian Local Government system which is the third tier of government has no interactive links with the community for which it was designed and created. This has made so many people to wonder if there is grassroots democracy in Nigeria. Though the government is located at the local level, it is run by elites who are alienated from the culture of the people (Akinola 2006). Thus the local government and the communities that ought to be partners in progress have been operating at parallel lines. This has resulted in the poor performance of the local government over the years in grassroots development. There have been several reforms over the years by the Federal Government of Nigeria aimed at stimulating self government and to encourage initiative and leadership potential at the grassroots level. The Federal government hopes that these reforms will further enshrine the principle of participatory democracy and political responsibility among all Nigerians, especially at the grassroots level (Usman 2010). The hope of the Federal government for rapid youth development at the grassroots have become a mirage as successive local government councils have grossly under-perform in almost all areas of their mandate including youth development. Corruption is at the rooftop as politicians and government officials display their ill-gotten wealth in flagrant opulence.