Centre for Development Communication

This field study shows that women in Kuje understand household economics better than the policies designed to “empower” them—and have been proving it daily for over 15 years.

Participatory Development Lesson #2: Community Mapping for Women’s Empowerment and Policy Action in Kuje, Abuja The Centre for Development Communication (CDC), through its Citizens’ Voices Project, applied community mapping as a participatory communication approach to engage women in the informal sector in Kuje Area Council, Abuja. The project was designed to enable women to articulate their lived economic ...

Nigeria’s democracy is not failing because citizens disengaged—it is failing because political parties abandoned development. Drawing from field notes across Lagos and Abuja, this study exposes how political parties have been reduced to vote-gathering machines rather than people-centred development institutions. Citizens describe elite capture, election-centric mobilisation, and the collapse of party ideology as key drivers of democratic disillusionment.

This new publication by the Centre for Development Communication (DevCom) challenges us to rethink political parties as agents of participation, legitimacy, and sustainable development—not just access points to power.

Political Parties and Citizen Perceptions of Development in Nigeria: A Field Note Study in Lagos and Abuja Introduction This field note–based study examined whether the management and functionality of political parties in Nigeria have contributed to shaping citizens’ support for—or withdrawal from—democracy. Lagos and Abuja were selected as case studies due to their cosmopolitan characteristics, ...