Abstract

This study examines grassroots participation in decision-making process and sustainability of community development programmes in Nigeria. In spite of many policies on development programmes by the government, the physical and socio-economic conditions in most of communities in Nigeria do not seem to have improved significantly. The descriptive survey research design was used. The stratified random sampling technique was adopted to select 1,984 respondents (community leaders (266); change-agents (569); members of community development associations (1,022) and political representatives (127) in nine communities each from Osun (964) and Kwara states (1,020)). A questionnaire: Grassroots Participation in Decision-making Process and Programmes Scale (GPDPPS) and Community Development Sustainability Questionnaire (CDSQ) were used for data collection. One research question was answered and two hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation. Results showed that there is significant relationship between grassroots participation in development programmes (r=.335**; p<0.05); decision-making process (r=.210**; p<0.05) and sustainability of development programmes. Furthermore, political instability, leadership problems, communal clashes, inadequate funding and poor accountability impeded sustainability. It was recommended that the problems of political instability, leadership, inadequate funding, communal clashes, accountability, and communication gap should be considered in grassroots decision making in development programmes.

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