Abstract
The paper is entitled ‘The challenge of bottom-up paradigm and popular participation in rural economic development of Nigeria’. There is the clamour for a shift from centre-down to bottom-up paradigm particularly among the rural developers considering the back-wash effects of the latter which tends to undermine the economic growth and development of the rural areas. The paper aims at reinforcing the adoption of bottom-up and popular participation approaches to rural socio-economic transformation inspite of the attendant difficulties. It examined popular participation as a concept relating to gaining political accessibility through democratic process, mobilizing and educating the masses to support government programmes and policies as in the case of present removal of fuel subsidy which generated hot debate and resulted in industrial action by labour unions with a view to changing government decision. But popular participation is being confronted with serious challenge of control in Nigeria. There is corruption in the high places, armed robbery attacks, religious intolerance, political violence, tribal discrimination and insecurity of life and properties thereby threatening corporate existence of the country. The paper advocates for the strengthening of a bottom-up strategy instead of top-down through decentralization of sufficient powers, functions and resources in favour of rural majority at the grassroot and by doing so, it will foster a balanced development between the centre and the subordinate local administrative units. Moreover, democratic governance must be allowed to reign supreme not only to attain the national goals of 2020 but also enable Nigeria to assume her rightful position in the world. One concludes that if the local communities are given the opportunities to get involved in the decision-making process that often affect their condition of living, engage in productive ventures, self-help communal projects, and harnessing the creative potentials, talents, skills combined with physical and human resources, it would go a long way to reduce not only the over-dependence of the people on the government to provide everything they need but also help to improve socio-economic well-being in the backward, under-privileged and disadvantaged rural areas.