This book deconstructs the neopatrimonial paradigm that has dominated analysis of Nigerian and African development. It shows that by denying agency to Nigerian societies and devaluing indigenous culture and local realities, Eurocentric diffusionism played a significant role in the failure of development planning.

This is the only book of its kind to address the effect of agricultural decentralization on the Nigerian national economy. In his effort to demonstrate how decentralization promotes development that can economically empower individuals, Uwadibie thoroughly analyzes three key aspects of Nigeria's decentralization policy. These are the Local Government Reform Act of 1976, the creation of new states, and the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). Together, these policies reduced the overall role of the federal government in the national economy by diverting revenue to states and dissolving the federal government's direct ownership of agricultural enterprises. Based on his extensive research, Uwadibie concludes by making a number of additional policy recommendations that he believes are essential for Nigeria to become self-sufficient in food production. Those with an interest in African studies, economic development, or agricultural production will find much to their liking in this work.

This book focuses on urban development and planning in Nigeria by analyzing the nature and determinants of urban and regional planning strategies and outcomes in Rivers State, Nigeria. The book is organized into fourteen chapters. The first chapter focuses on population growth and the development of the Nigerian urban system. The second chapter traces the roots of Nigerian urban and regional planning system. The third chapter discusses the institutional framework for planning the evolving planning institutions and the emergence of the planning profession in the country and Rivers State. Chapter four examines political and economic forces and the substantive urban planning issues and problems faced by planners in the PH metropolis. Chapter five focuses on PH urban politics, planning administration and institutions. Chapters six and seven focus on the responses of planning to environmental, housing problems, transportation, land use, local economic development, and urban services issues. It documents how urban development and planning policies pertaining to these issues affect urban population groups and how the populations have responded to the outcomes of conventional planning intervention and offers alternative policies. In chapter eight, the problems of plan implementation is examined focusing on the implementation of the Diobu Master Plan, while chapters nine, ten, and eleven present physical planning and development control within the context of local government system in Rivers State. In chapter twelve, the book presents planning for a new town, New Finima, in Rivers State, designed to resettle the Finima. Chapters thirteen and fourteen dwell on the problem of rural urban balance and regional planning in Rivers State and Nigeria in general. It focuses special attention on the problem of urban and rural disparities as the key issue facing regional planning and suggests measures for ensuring that urban planning promotes the welfare of all and enhances the opportunities for the procurement of benefits of development programs by all socioeconomic groups. The book concludes with chapter fifteen on planning imperatives to make the Port Harcourt metropolis livable.

In this book, Jeremiah I. Dibua challenges prevailing notions of Africa's development crisis by drawing attention to the role of modernization as a way of understanding the nature and dynamics of the crisis, and how to overcome the problem of underdevelopment. He specifically focuses on Nigeria and its development trajectory since it exemplifies the crisis of underdevelopment in the continent. He explores various theoretical and empirical issues involved in understanding the crisis, including state, class, gender and culture, often neglected in analysis, from an interdisciplinary, radical political economy perspective. This is the first book to adopt such an approach and to develop a new framework for analyzing Nigeria's and Africa's development crisis. It will influence the debate on the development dilemma of African and Third World societies and will be of interest to scholars and students of race and ethnicity, modern African history, class analysis, gender studies, and development studies.