PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN BORNO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Theinclusive governance is necessary if the conditions of democratic community where
disadvantaged groupsare unable to acquire accountability from the statebecause it
means that citizens are not allowed to challenge existing policies, law and practices. The
objectives of the study are to examine youth, Women IDPs the physical Challenged
person's participation in Community projects in Borno state, the study adopted qualitative
method focusing on the interpretative research design. The study adopted focus group
discussion with 150 political ward members as the method used in data collection. The
study used purposive sampling technique to select research participants in equal
representation of male and female, young and old for to form the focus group discussion.
The study adopted explanatory analysis by transcription of the oral interview data
obtained from the focus group discussion into text. The result of the study revealed that
youth Activity participate in community projects, as the Borno State government
employed 450 youths to participate in community sanitation job The study further shows
that Borno State in 2019 introduced women development Centre for the training of
women in skill work acquisition. The study recommended that Borno State government
should provide security measures to recover communities around the Lake Chad Basin
Area in order to establish modern agricultural programmes such as the irrigation
farming to provide jobs to the unemployed youths. The primary reason why the majority
of respondents are unable to engage in economic activities during displacement is
that the unskilled labour market has become very competitive due to the influx of IDPs
and consequent availability of cheap labour. Prior to displacement, 45% of
respondents relied on farming as their primary source of livelihood, while 18% relied
on trading and 10% on handcraft. Thus, although skilled employment is available,
IDPs are generally unable to access these jobs because they lack the requisite skills.