Public Library Participation in the National Fadama Development Project (NFDP) in Nigeria

The paper focuses on public library participation in the National Fadama Development Project (NFDP) in Nigeria. It traces agricultural development programmes in Nigeria from the farm settlement schemes (FSS), National Accelerated Food Production programme (NAFPP), the Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution Programme, to the World Bank-funded Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs). It specifically highlights the activities of the World Bank sponsored Fadama Project in Nigeria and discusses the participatory role of the public library in the effective implementation of the Fadama Project. Some of the identified roles of the public library include acquisition of relevant materials, exhibition and display, repackaging of information on Fadama project, publications and jingle, and maintenance of database on Fadama project. It concludes that the public library has a civilizing role in seeing to the sustenance of the Fadama Project by its statutory role of collecting, organizing, preserving and disseminating information to the people involved in the Project for its proximity to the people.