Question 4
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
PASSAGE
The root of the problems which bedevil rural dwellers in nigeria can be traced to the sad fact that they cannot work their way out of poverty and misery. Though a great number of Nigerians still live in the villages and small towns, work opportunities exist mainly in the big cities where development efforts are concentrated. The reason usually given for this obvious lapse is that it is easier to establish industries and to find finance and markets to keep them going in the big cities and towns than in the rural areas where productivity is low because of mass illiteracy and poverty.
As capital is the product of human work, rurla dwellers who are desperate enough to overcoe poverty often leave the village in search of some kind of existence in the big cities and towns. Therefore, rural unemployment in Nigeria produces mass migration into cities, leading to a rate of urban growth which seriously taxes the resources of even the biggest cities like Ibadan, Lagos, Abuja and Kano. From the sad experiences of these cities, it is easy to see how rural unemployment can become urban unemployment with the attendant social problems like robbery, overcrowding and the growth of shanties and slums.
Such problems cannot be wished away but will remain with us until deliberate efforts are made to bring health to economic life outside the big cities in order to check the migration of destitute rural dwellers into towns and cities that cannot absorb them.
It is necessary, therefore, that at least an important part of the development effort should bypass the big cities and be concerned with the provision of viable infrastructure in the small towns and villages. In this connection, it is necessary to emphasize that the primary need is work places. The task should be to bring into existence thousands or millions of new workplaces in the rural areas and small towns in order to maximize work opportunity for rural dwellers. For this proposition to make sense, firts , the work opportuniiteis should be created in the rural areas where the majority of the people live, not where they tend to migrate for lack of opportunities. Second, the production methods employed must be relatively simple, so that the demand for high skills are minimized, not only in the production process itself but also in matters of organization, raw materials and for local use. Lastly, rural workplacess should be cheap enough so that they can be created in large numbers. These four requirements together meet the description of what is usually called 'cottage industry'. Millions of them are needed for rural transformation in Nigeria and to check the dangerous process of mutual positioning between urban and rural areas in the country.
PASSAGE
The root of the problems which bedevil rural dwellers in nigeria can be traced to the sad fact that they cannot work their way out of poverty and misery. Though a great number of Nigerians still live in the villages and small towns, work opportunities exist mainly in the big cities where development efforts are concentrated. The reason usually given for this obvious lapse is that it is easier to establish industries and to find finance and markets to keep them going in the big cities and towns than in the rural areas where productivity is low because of mass illiteracy and poverty.
As capital is the product of human work, rurla dwellers who are desperate enough to overcoe poverty often leave the village in search of some kind of existence in the big cities and towns. Therefore, rural unemployment in Nigeria produces mass migration into cities, leading to a rate of urban growth which seriously taxes the resources of even the biggest cities like Ibadan, Lagos, Abuja and Kano. From the sad experiences of these cities, it is easy to see how rural unemployment can become urban unemployment with the attendant social problems like robbery, overcrowding and the growth of shanties and slums.
Such problems cannot be wished away but will remain with us until deliberate efforts are made to bring health to economic life outside the big cities in order to check the migration of destitute rural dwellers into towns and cities that cannot absorb them.
It is necessary, therefore, that at least an important part of the development effort should bypass the big cities and be concerned with the provision of viable infrastructure in the small towns and villages. In this connection, it is necessary to emphasize that the primary need is work places. The task should be to bring into existence thousands or millions of new workplaces in the rural areas and small towns in order to maximize work opportunity for rural dwellers. For this proposition to make sense, firts , the work opportuniiteis should be created in the rural areas where the majority of the people live, not where they tend to migrate for lack of opportunities. Second, the production methods employed must be relatively simple, so that the demand for high skills are minimized, not only in the production process itself but also in matters of organization, raw materials and for local use. Lastly, rural workplacess should be cheap enough so that they can be created in large numbers. These four requirements together meet the description of what is usually called 'cottage industry'. Millions of them are needed for rural transformation in Nigeria and to check the dangerous process of mutual positioning between urban and rural areas in the country.
The expression mutual positioning as used in the passage, suggests that
Objective