Rural Management as a Strategy for Reducing Rural-Urban Migration in Nigeria, A Case Study of Auchi.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                             INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

          According to Aniker (1973), rural management is the strategies, policies and programs for the development of rural areas and the promotion and empowering of activities carried out in such areas as rural crafts, fishing, buildings and social infrastructures with the ultimate aim of achieving a fuller utilization of available physical and human resources and yield higher incomes and better living conditions for the rural people and effective participation of the later in the development process.

Nigeria, a country in West African sub-region is blessed with abundant natural and material resources. With an estimated current population of over nine hundred and twenty four thousand (924, 000) square kilometers, Nigeria is unarguably the most populous country in African and one of the largest in terms of geographical area. About seventy percent (70%) of the population depend on agricultural activities for their livelihood and live in rural communities. Currently, over forty million (40,000,000) out of the total population of over one hundred million (100,000,000) people live in urban area. Therefore, the rural area within the geographic entity of the country is whereby majority of the population is found. The country is passing through a social economic and technological revolution which is separating rural development from merely agricultural development. Rural development and agricultural development have been considered synonymous but agriculture is by no means the only possible occupation for the rural dwellers and therefore there is the need to distinguish between rural management and agricultural development. New and broader views have emerged which distinguished rural lands development and management from merely agricultural development.