The living condition of Nigerians in most communities of the Federation are quite unpleasant in massive rural urban drift. Most community roads are quite unmotorable, often neglected and poorly maintained. Medical and health communities. Many inhabitants of various communities, many inhabitants of various communities in Nigeria are victims of illiteracy, political ignorance are political apathy. They are rural poverty and no programme for rural poverty alleviation. However, the focus of this research is to assess the problems of local Government Agent of community development of ensuring that the expectations of the rural populace are met and to find out how these efforts have facilities rural community development. This research through has been limited to Owerri municipal Local Government Area of Imo state, will also surge into knowing why all the huge statutory allocation from the federation accounts have not provided maximum development in the Imo state and why some local Government develops at the expense of others.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
One of the major objectives of any nation is to promote the welfare of the citizenry. The basic of these problems of local government agent of community development is the need to formulate policies and programmes that will rise and sustain the people’s quality of life. To stress the sanctity of these objectives, Nigerian’s through their respective, entrenched this in the fundamental objectives and directives principle of state policy”. These ideas are supposed to act across the three levels of government in Nigeria because more Nigerians live in Imo state. The rural are as have contributed to remain underdeveloped and the forces that have helped to debase the periphery and which have kept to area physically, economically, socially and politically. “wretched” need to be redressed local government is the level of government in Nigeria that is closest to the unseen million trapped in poverty”. [Bell 1 man 1990-54] by virtue of its rural base in most notion states, it acts as a vehicle for rural inquiring and transformation. As the last tier of the national government is better place to bring about the require development projects by way of mobilizing the human and material resources and for better communication between the government and the governed. The Imo state has continued to serve as the food basket of Nigeria. And an appropriate self conscious and determined effort is not directed towards the upliftment of the wretched condition of the Imo state. The development of the nation state will continue to lay behind. There can therefore be no other way of stimulating national development without developing the rural communities first. These has been enclosed by Bell - I man (1990:45) where he said that;
These are millions of unseen people tapped in powerless, compared with urban areas, there is comparative underdevelopment in the Imo state. Since Owerri municipal local government Area involved both the legislative and executive process operating under democratic principle of popular participation of local; people in the management of their local affairs, it is expected to make policies and play roles that could facilitates and ensure an accelerated development of its rural communities.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Local government is generally regarded as a powerful instrument of community development. The functions which are allocated to local government are those which are designed to provide services of socio-economic and political development within the local government area. This is why since colonial epoch in Nigeria the local government has gained the attention of successive governments in terms of reform circulation and statutory allocation. The latest is being the 1976 and 1988 local government reforms. But in spite of all these reforms the efficiency and effectiveness of the local government council at accelerative rural community development is yet to be achieved.
The focus of this research work is to identify these problems as they affect the performance of the local government council. This research work intends to find out who is responsible for this back work movement. Is it the central government, the state government of the local government council

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this research is to examine the problems of local government in Imo state in Nigeria and to attempt at identifying the factors that militate against effective performance of local government in Imo state inquiring. Moreover, this research also attempts to know if the expectations of the policy makers who created local government as the third tier system of agent of community development have been actualized or has it been defeated.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to carry out this research study some research question were ask;

1. Does the local government council attract development projects to their community?
2. Has there been any improvement in the standard living of the rural people as a result of the present local council?
3. Does local government council use their resources for the development of their communities?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Since local government directly on the lives of the rural dwellers than international commitment of a country, a constructive and objective of the problems of local government agent of community development in Imo state will no doubt promote efficiency and thus beneficial to all. It is hoped that the findings of this study to a great extent will help in improving the performance of the local government and as such become conscious of their constitutional duties. Above all, it is hoped that the adoption of the recommendation will go a long way in the general improvement of performance and development of the local government and rural communities respectively.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The research work will be limited to Owerri municipal local government area in Imo state. The local government Ares was created on May 3rd, 1987, carried out from Owerri municipal local government area. It is uniform local government system and a detailed investigation of one, like Owerri municipal local government area will form a reliable basic for valid generalization of all local government in Nigeria, with regard to their problems on community development. The research encountered problems in the course of the study. The problems ranged from financial constraint following the downward surge of the economic and the fact that the researcher is a student and therefore dependent.

1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The major limitation is paucity of relevant data on the subject. Since our major research instrument were questionnaire and oral interviews, those that collected the questionnaire delayed unnecessary to fill in the information, some filled the questionnaire with inaccurate information. Some local government staffs of Owerri municipal feared that the researcher might be a journalist and all those served as militating factors gathering information for a comprehensive research work.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
The concept, which we intend to define for use in this work, are as follows;
DEVELOPMENT
The concept development does not have general definitions. There are as many definitions a there are authors.
Some define development in terms of increase in the cross national product (GNP) of a country calculated annually.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Community development is a process of planned and progressive improvement of the economic, political and cultural conditions of communities through the combined efforts of government and the people of the communities.
PROBLEMS
Problems simply means a role played by government individual or corporate body. However in the case of local government and obligations embedded and bestowed on the local government council.