Abstract: | It is common knowlegde that rural communities in Nigeria have continued to suffer from serious neglect. Governments have merely expressed their desire to transform the rural areas. They have not made any serious attempt to review the deplorable situation in these rural areas. This paper examines the problem of rural poverty and neglect in Nigeria, and the consequences for national development. What is needed is a fundamental change in policy from a capitalist oriented, class-based system, to a 'big push' towards mass mobilization and a national development momentum, through a giant public works programme aimed at providing the basic needs of the people through infrastructural development and through basic institutional reforms for the conveyance of the programme, to make it people-based rather than planner-based. Only such a massive national movement toward redressing the rural-urban dichotomy can guarantee Nigeria's survival as a nation-state. Bibliogr. |