By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu
Manifestoes and programmes and policy direction of parties or individuals who have ambitions of assuming power play critical roles in the business of governance. One, it offers the electorate choices among the political parties contesting for power. Two, it gives political office holders guidance and direction. Three, the electorate can rely on the promises contained in these manifestoes to hold the political office holders accountable for their actions and inactions. These and more are the reasons why people seeking political offices should offer the electorate clear cut manifestoes and policies and programmes direction.
Though in an electioneering season as we are presently witnessing, political office holders inundate public spaces with promises, even up to the point of humorously building bridges where there are no rivers existing, firing, instead of electrifying, places, one candidate has stood out of the crowd with an agenda that touches the core of greater percentage of the populace.
One of the legs on which the agenda of Prof. Uche Ikonne, the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 governorship election in Abia State is standing is ” Rural and Community Development “.
Prof Ikonne on several occasions for the umpteenth time emphasised that rural and community development will form one of the legs in which his administration, God willing, if he succeeds in his gubernatorial ambition, would run.
Considering the importance of rural and community development in developing economies, Prof. Ikonne is on the right track. This is because bulk of the population, which constitutes over 80 percent in the developing world, live in the rural setting.
The imperatives of rural and community development cannot be overemphasized. To paint a clearer picture of why the rural centres should need urgent interventions of developmental activities, the indices for rural areas in Nigeria should be taken into serious account. Rural communities in Nigeria are inhabited by over 70 percent of the population; these rural dwellers depend for their livelihood on agriculture; in rural communities income generation opportunities are limited; rural communities enjoy limited amenities; rural communities lack access to good roads, among others.
According to World Bank, rural development is the process of rural modernisation and the monetisation of the rural society leading to its transition from traditional isolation to integration with the national economy. It is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people. Other leading scholars see rural development as an integrated approach to food production, provision of physical, social and institutional infrastructure with an ultimate goal of bringing about qualitative and quantitative changes which culminate in improved standard of living of the rural population.
Therefore, rural development will ensure access to good roads, potable water, electricity, health facilities. It will also facilitate increased opportunities, progressive adjustments in rural well- being, and optimal balance between opportunities. It means development of the skills of the masses for improved living, especially the low income segment of the population.By so doing, it will reduce drastically rural-urban migration. This will help in decongesting the urban the urban centres, and thereby, reducing crime.
On the other hand, community development seeks to empower individuals and group of people by providing them with skills they need to effect change in their communities. It involves changing the relationships between ordinary people and people in positions of power to ensure that everyone takes part in the issues affecting them.
The goals of community development are to improve life at the local communities; to develop all aspects of community living simultaneously asntobavoid imbalance or neglect of any segment of the population; to explore and use technical assistance available from outside the community; to demonstrate special capabilities, projects and resources which will be useful to other communities; to cooperate with and coordinate state and national development plans; to demonstrate that the people should be the one to take the initiative and decisions to actions. The people should participate in planning and not execution.
Like Prof. Ikonne has severally insisted that his government, if elected, would be participatory in nature, there is no other way to ensure this other than the community development model. If the people are carried along or engaged right from the conception of projects and programmes, they will be easily mobilised and integrated into those programmes and projects. This is a clear departure in the past periods where the locals who would benefit from projects were not carried along and this constituted a huge clog in the wheel of progress, thereby hindering the enlistment of their support for the project.
Furthermore, community development ensures uniting people’s efforts with that of the government to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of the communities to integrate these communities into the life of the state to enable them contribute fully to the state”s progress. It is a process of helping local communities to become aware of their needs, to access their resources more realistically, and to organise themselves in such a way to satisfy some of their needs.
Rural and community development is a sure way to go in contemporary governance. And Prof. Ikonne’s rural and community development agenda is indeed laudable
