By Charles Ikedikwa Soeze
Obviously, there is urgent need to develop Nigeria’s rural areas. It is indeed very compelling moral, social-cultural, political, and economic, defence, and security reasons for developing our rural areas. This is because most of all Nigeria’s natural and mineral resources are in the rural areas. In view of the previous neglect of the rural setting, the problem of rural-urban migration has become intractable in Nigeria. From the economic point of view, the development of the rural areas will result in improved condition of living and quality of life through the diversification of the rural economy. Politically and otherwise, there is the need to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in the organization and management of our human and material resources which are very much available in the rural areas.
It is a truism to say that efforts were really made to develop rural Nigeria since independence. However, three phases of Nigerian development of the rural areas could be identified. They are as follows: the pre-oil boom, agricultural era of the sixties; the oil-boom era of the seventies and the current oil-glut/world economic recession period. During the first Nigerian plan period 1962-1968, rural development programmes were linked to agriculture, government was bent on giving agriculture a place of ride and making it a vehicle for industrialization. Apart from growing food crops for local consumption, farmers were encouraged to grow cash crops for export, to enhance their income and to obtain foreign exchange goods for government.
Consequently, the farmers grew crops that favoured their ecological zones. In the east, there was palm oil, in the west, cocoa, in Delta and Edo, rubber, while groundnut, cotton, etc. were grown in the North. That was the era of groundnut pyramid in Kano zone. Furthermore, government also established farm settlements in the East and West, using able-bodied farmers as settlers.
As a result, marketing boards were established to buy farmers products at reasonable prices. Cooperative banks were also established in the then four regions to grant loans to farmers. It was believed that these efforts would improve agriculture and make it vehicle for the country’s take-off into sustained growth and industrialization.
Regrettably, this view of Nigeria was short lived. There was inadequate exploitation of the agricultural land area for various reasons including poor mechanization process. There was also population explosion in Nigeria. By 1962 census, Nigeria was already 51 million people. However, the civil war of 1967-1970 stopped virtually all farming activities in the then East. The oil boom also made many Nigerian to forget about farming. Many migrated to Lagos, Warri, Ibadan, among other cities. As a result, there was serious unemployment palaver in the early seventies. In most towns and villages, able bodied young men 18-45 years had left for Lagos, and many who could not be housed in the suburbs were satisfied with under the fly-over bridge squatting arrangements. These developments changed the rural outlook and thus forced the federal military government to take a second look at things as could be seen from the second development plan of 1970 – 1974. The second plan was no longer talking about using the presumed abundant agricultural potentials to industrialize, because majority of the farmers had left the rural areas for Lagos and other big cities. To this end therefore, there was no groundnut pyramids in Kano; not even rice or garri in the former quantity we know it.
Based on the above, the second development plan 1970- 1974 objectives was how to produce food for the teeming population of Nigeria. This became necessary to ensure adequate food supplies to meet quality standards, for increasing rural population, to step up production of agricultural raw materials for export and for domestic agro-based industrial manufacturing and to create rural employment opportunities to reduce rural-urban migration. However, the government resolved to realize these objectives through various land use methods and increasing exploitation of the underground and surface water resources of Nigeria. The government commenced through Decree 31 of 1973 which established River Basin and Rural Development Authorities in Sokoto and Chad. The nation’s graduates were also meant to undergo compulsory one-year National Service. Many were employed to go to the rural areas and help.
Furthermore, the third national development plan of 1975 – 1980 further emphasized back to land policies of government. The plan included the support of self-help projects; promoting of rural development programmes; and the establishment of modern villages. The federal government voted N93.29 million for self-help projects in order to assist the rural communities to be habitable. However, these efforts were further improved in the fourth plan period (1981 – 1985) during which the government seriously embarked on integrated rural development programme. In 1986, the government founded the Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) in order to deal directly with rural problems. The nation’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) commenced also in 1986.
In view of the statement by the then Minister of Budget and Planning, Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji, that the ritualistic five years plan could no longer address the emergency situations starting from 1983; as a result, the government commenced on a three year rolling plans from 1990. It is abundantly clear that Nigeria’s problem has not been in the formulation of policies but on their implementations.
Whatever the case may be, it is important to argue the need to retain rural patterns of culture in Nigeria’s development efforts. In Western countries, rural areas are retained and are referred to mainly as country side. The Europeans escape to the area to enjoy the landscape and escape industrial noise of the urban places. In view of the accident of colonization and the pattern of urbanization, rural-urban migration, and its drain on rural human and material resources, and the adapted path to modernization, Nigerian rural communities stand a chance of losing their cultural leaning.
In the last three decades in Africa and especially in Nigeria, except for railways, no project has caused resettlement in Africa as Dam projects. For instance, Brokensha and Scudder showed that 51,000 people were resettled as a result of Kariba Dam while 70,000 and 100,000 people were resettled as a result of Volta and Answan High Dam respectively.
Furthermore, records also show that 44,000 people were resettled as a result of Niger Dam. The Bakolori and Goronyo Dam projects in Sokoto and Kebbi states caused the resettlement of about 15 and 36 villages respectively.
Finally, the rural people cannot be pushed aside in the development of their communities. They should be active participants and their self-help development efforts should be brushed aside. Any project within a community’s cultural area which tends to isolate key and influential members of that community cannot be for the benefit of that or any other immediate community. An irrigation agricultural project cannot alienate the natives waiting to participate, with their rulers, and still be popular.
Since the project is for progress, the culture of the people of the immediate vicinity must be planned to benefit together with the philosophy behind the country’s rural development, if such development is for the benefit of the community. Development projects that do not carry the people along are imposed and cannot be in tune with the people’s self-help projects. If rural development projects that are foreign or are allowed to continue, the rural areas of the nation will in no distant time become portend good for the nation’s development.
Charles Ikedikwa Soeze, fhnr, fcida, fcai, fswca, cpae, chnr, emba, ghnr, gpa, son, ksq, is a learned Mass Communicator, from first degree to doctoral level. Former Assistant Director (Administration)/Head, Academic and Physical Planning (A&PP) of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State. He is a Public Affairs Analyst/Commentator on local, national and international issues. 08036724193. (charlessoeze@yahoo.ca).
