ABSTRACT
The study focused on the linkage mechanisms in community development activities among local leaders and extension agents in Edo State, Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, identified community development activities carried out, examined the performance by the respondents, ascertained linkage mechanisms between the local leaders and extension agents as well as examined the perceived effectiveness of the linkage mechanisms among others.
Multistage sampling was used to select local leaders and extension agents. Data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics such as frequency count, percentage, mean and charts were used to analyse the specific objectives while binary logistic regression and t-test were used to test the hypotheses stated.
Results showed that majority of the local leaders and extension agents (68.8% and 67.7%) were males with a mean age of 46 and 45 years respectively. Local leaders and extension agents had a mean of (=3) and (=18) years of leadership experience respectively. Among the activities performed by the respondents, making decision on issues were highly preformed by both the local leaders and extension agents (=4.53) and (=3.65) as an activity in community development, acting as liaison between government and NGOs (=4.36) and (=3.55) was equally performed by both the local leaders and extension agents. However, advising and encouraging community youth to marry early (=1.15) and (=1.45) were the only activity that had low level of performance among the extension agents and local leaders. Furthermore, both informal and organizational linkage programme such as social gathering (=3.09) and (=3.52) were performed by the respondents and many of the programmes were effective. Marital status (χ2 = 2.96), rank/position in the community occupied by the local leaders (χ2 = 4.43) and household size
(χ2= 12.34) were the significant determinants of effectiveness of linkage programme in community development activities at 0.05 significant level. Also, results showed that marital status (χ2 = 6.091), rank ( χ2= 9.132), working experience ( χ2= 8.679) and employment type ( χ2 = 2.819) were the significant determinants of the perceived effectiveness of linkage programme among extension agents in community development activities, Significant difference was observed in the linkage mechanism between extension agents and local leaders in community development activities with local leaders showing lower mean scores compared to the extension agents. The t-test value of – 4.82, df (156); p≤0.01 shows that contacts between extension agents and local leaders was significantly difference at 1% level of significance. It was concluded that linkage mechanisms between local leaders and extension agents were effective but the difference in the frequency of contacts between them may be a serious issue that could affect the sustainability of projects that result from the linkage system. It is therefore recommended that agricultural extension agency should establish once in a month contact with the local leaders for rapid community development of rural communities.
