Abstract

This study examined the attitude of rural households to Community Development Projects in Ogun state Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 120 rural household heads. Data were collected with an interview schedule and analyzed using frequency counts, percentages, mean and correlation. Results reveal that 55.8% of the respondents were male, 53.3% had secondary education and the mean age was 38 years with an average household size of 6 persons. Findings also reveal that the implemented Community Development Projects (CDPs) indicated by more than 60% of the households included borehole, installation of a transformer, security post and entrance gate. Most (64.0%) of them had an undesirable attitude to the CDPs. The strategies used to accomplish these CDPs with the mean score above 2.0 were clear goal setting, delegation and participatory evaluation. The main problems encountered in CDPs were the unwillingness of members to contribute financially (86.7%), lack of cooperation (80.8%) and distrust among members (75.0%). There was a significant relationship between strategies used (r= 0.85, p<0.05) and attitude to CDPs. It was concluded that many of the rural households had undesirable attitude towards CDPs and it is significantly related to strategies used in the project handling and implementation. Therefore, it is recommended that factors which predispose people to undesirable attitude towards CDPs should be resolved at the community level to win peoples? trust and cooperation so as to improve their attitude in projects that can transform their rural communities.

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