Participatory rural development has evolved in the past 60
years as a development process and discourse that should
encapsulate a wide range of views, voices and stakeholder
contributions. How has this approach been followed in
Nigeria?s rural development practice? This paper reviews the
practices and challenges of participatory rural development in
Nigeria from a historical perspective emphasizing on the
colonial system and post-colonial military and civilian
governance. The paper observes that participatory development
has not been practiced in the real sense of the concept in rural
development in Nigeria. While highly centralized and topdown
exploitative rural development practice dominated the
colonial system up to the period of post-independence military
dictatorship, not much significant difference have been
observed within the current civilian democratic experiment.
The paper argues that while long years of military rule in
Nigeria have made it impossible for the development of
effective institutional arrangements that could sustain true
participatory democratic culture, a lack of citizens? capacity to
participate in development intended for their benefit has posed
the greatest challenge in achieving sustainable participatory
rural development.