Civic Participation in Local Government Policy Making

The result showed that policy making and budgetary processes in the local government provided for little civic participation because of the top-down approach to local government policy making and budgetary processes used. The result also showed that civic participation had significant impact on policy making and budgetary process in the selected local governments (χ2 = 235.771 p <0.05). Furthermore it was revealed that civic participation in local government policy making and budgetary process is encouraged to some extent in the Southwestern Nigeria (χ2 = 261.390 <0.05). Finally the study revealed that lack of political will and commitment on the part of the government functionaries (58.1%) and the non-availability of universal legal framework that could support civic participation in policy making processes (58.09%) were limiting factors to civic participation. The study concluded that though democratic political process currently in place had improved political participation there was still low level of Civic Participation in local government policy making and budgetary process.