COPING WITH INFRASTRUCTURE DEFICIT: A NARRATION FROM HOUSEHOLDS’ HEADS IN THE DEVELOPMENTAL ZONES OF OGBOMOSO, NIGERIA

Abstract

Despite government efforts in the provision of infrastructure, many residents in the developing countries, Nigeria inclusive experienced infrastructure deficit at the household level. This study therefore examined coping strategies to infrastructure deficit by households’ heads in the three developmental zones of Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Using multistage sampling procedure, the residential areas in Ogbomoso were stratified into core, transition and suburban developmental zones for questionnaire survey. Due to homogeneity of the areas in each zone, one area was randomly selected in each zone, this resulted into sampling of every 10th residential building with the selection of 221 households’ heads. This comprised 89, 72 and 60 respondents in the core, transition and suburban zones respectively. Data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that the level of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative as coping strategies to infrastructure deficit increases as distance increases from the core to suburban zones, and this is influenced by socioeconomic characteristics of households’ heads. The study concluded that there is a need for viable framework, programme and actionable plans by international actors towards the provision of sustainable infrastructure at household level, thereby complementing government efforts towards sustainable infrastructure provision especially in the core and transition developmental zones of the study area.