Development Centers and Grassroots Good Governance in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria (2019-2023)

Governance at the grassroots level is ideally supposed to serve as a mirror through which the performance of every other government is measured. This informs the establishment of development centers in the Oji River Local Government Area. Notwithstanding the existence of development centers vis-à-vis their intended benefits to the local populace, what is on the ground is at variance with its purpose as the development centers cannot mobilize the grassroots populace to participate in governance and administer infrastructural development at that level. Data for this study was obtained through secondary sources with content analysis of information from the internet, journals, and books. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need Theory (1943) as a framework for the study. The paper recommended that the establishment of development centers is in order but appropriate holistic measures should be put in place to enable it to serve its purpose which is based on encouraging good governance at the grassroots levels in Oji River local government Area of Enugu State, among other areas. The study, therefore, concluded that the current state of development centers in Oji River local government area is an aberration to any ideal democratic governance where the grassroots is supposed to be the pillar that holds firm other wider tiers of government.