Effect of Community Participation on Sustainable Infras- tructural Projects in Oil-Producing Communities, Ondo State, Nigeria

In the oil producing communities, although a lot of money has been invested in the development of infrastructures, the sustainability of these projects has continued to be a challenge. This paper looked at how community engagement influences sustainability of infrastructural projects in oil producing communities in Ondo state, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive survey design that was to collect data on 204 community leaders in six communities (Ikorigho, Orioke, Ilowo, Seluwa, Akpata, and Opuba) in the Ilaje and Ese-Odo Local Government Areas. The multiple regression analysis shows that the community participation is found to explain 20.7\% of the variation in the sustainable infrastructural projects ($R^2 = 0.207, F = 12.818, P = 0.000$). Out of the 4 dimensions of community participation discussed; decision-making, financial contribution, labour involvement, and project monitoring (b = 0.313; P = 0.000) and decision-making (b = 0.234; P = 0.005) only show statistically significant positive results on sustainability. Labour involvement ($\beta = 0.028; P = 0.723$) shows no significant effect, while financial contribution ($\beta = -0.048; P = 0.565$) exhibits a negative but non-significant relationship. This finding demonstrates that the present infrastructural project implementation is characterised by a top-down scheme of community involvement in the critical decision-making process, and labour involvement is restricted to the passive roles that do not result in the long-term sustainability of projects. This paper concludes that the promotion of sustainability means that the tokenistic participation patterns should be replaced with the actual community involvement. Pragmatic suggestions will involve incorporation of the community representatives within the execution task forces with actual decision making roles and the inception of effective community surveillance measures.