IMPACT OF SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROVISION ON THE RESIDENTS WELLBEING IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY (FCT), NIGERIA

Abstract

Social infrastructure plays a vital role in the creation and development of healthy communities. It is seen as the backbone for every society to thrive and become habitable. Inadequate delivery and maintenance of quality social infrastructure at the neighbourhood level constitute a serious challenge in Abuja. This study focused on impact of social infrastructure on resident’s wellbeing in the FCT. Distribution pattern, physical conditions of existing social infrastructures were examined as well as their impact on resident’s wellbeing. Quantitative method which involved the use of structured questionnaire was employed to obtain data from the households. The total of 425 households were sampled using systematic random sampling with a multi stage sampling approach in five selected districts-Wuse, Maitama, Asokoro, Garki and Guzape respectively. Descriptive statistics which include percentages, spearman rank correlation and geospatial techniques including nearest neighbor analysis were employed. The results from the nearest neighbor analysis shows that social infrastructures in the study areas are adequately dispersed (z-score =7.5, p < 0.01). Spearman rank correlation was used to test the relationship between social infrastructure and residents wellbeing and the findings show that there is a statistical significant relationship between social infrastructure (rho = 0.95, p < 0.01), and residents wellbeing. The research reject null hypothesis (H1) and accept alternative hypothesis (H1). The research concludes that social infrastructure have impact on residents wellbeing. Hence, government should partner with relevant private developers and communities to harness resources, provide and maintain social infrastructure in order to improve residents wellbeing in the FCT.