Abstract:
Community development is a global adopted concept for improving the quality of life of
residents in a locality. Several reports have identified education as the most important
component of this approach as it ensures learnipng to become responsible citizen members and
building strong society and emotional skills. However, reports have shown that citizens‘
mobilisation and engagement towards the development of their communities have been on the
decline in Osun State, Nigeria. Previous studies concentrated more on governmental, nongovernmental and international agencies‘ interventions which is more of top-down approach
than on Citizens‘ Participation (CP) that is bottom-top approach. This study, therefore, was
designed to examine the determinants of CP (leadership style, members‘ attitude to
community projects, educational background, gender-related cultural issues, socio-economic
status and projects‘ location) and Community Development Projects (CDPs) in Osun State,
Nigeria.
This study was anchored to the Ladder of CP Theory, while the mixed methods design was
adopted. Two Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly selected from each of the
existing senatorial districts, while 10 registered Community Development Associations
(CDAs) were purposively selected from each LGA. Two hundred CDA members were
randomly selected from the selected LGAs, totalling 1, 200 members. The instruments used
were CP (r=0.86), Leadership Style (r=0.75), Gender-related Cultural Issues (r=0.76), Attitude
to CDPs (r=0.75), Project Location (r=0.77) and CP Challenges (r=0.78) questionnaires. Six
sessions of focus group discussion were conducted with four CDA executive per LGA, while
12 Community Development Inspectors (CDIs) were interviewed. Quantitative data were
analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson‘sproduct moment correlation and multiple
regression at 0.05 level of significance, while qualitative data were content-analysed.
The respondents‘ mean age was 43.56±3.20 years and 56.0% were male. The CDAs‘ meetings
(69.4%), community meetings (66.7%), landlord associations (56.9%), town crier (56.9%) and
religious organisations (55.6%) were major platforms for citizens‘ mobilisation. Leadership
style ( ̅=3.75), socio-economic status ( ̅=3.07), educational background ( ̅=2.85), Genderrelated Cultural Issues ( ̅=3.11), attitude to CDPs ( ̅=2.79), projects location ( ̅=3.19) and CP
in community development ( ̅=3.29) were high against the 2.50 threshold. Leadership style
(r=0.19), projects location (r=0.15) and socio-economic status (r=0.10) had the positive
significant relationships with CDPs, while citizens‘ attitude (r=-0.01) had a negative
significant relationship. There was a joint contribution of the determinants of CP in CDPs (F(6;
920)=8.63; Adj R2=0.05), accounting for 5.0% of its variance. Leadership style (β=0.15),
project location (β=0.12) and attitude to CDPs (β=0.11) relatively contributed to CP. About
51.0% of the respondents complained about the time of meeting, and meeting days which
often fall on market days, lack of trust on the part of the members of the executive and lack of
resource for mobilisation hindered CP. The CDIs acceded to the fact that logistics, funds and
projects‘ site hindered CP.
Leadership style, projects‘ location and attitude to community development projects
determined citizens‘ participation in community development projects in Osun State, Nigeria.
Government at various levels, policy makers and implementers, and community development
agencies should support citizens‘ optimum participations in community development projects
using the bottom-top approach.