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The need for local government creation stems from the need to facilitate development at grassroots level. However, certain challenges often obstruct its administration from doing so, which has to do with political, social, cultural, economic and environmental nature and system of the country, coupled with the problems around these factors. Against this background therefore, the paper utilises secondary data to analyse the concepts of local government and development, their relationship, as well as the challenges impeding local government from rendering developmental services and the way forward. The paper reveals that there is no confusion as far as the original functions of local government is concerned, especially that of grassroots accelerated development. However, local governments’ operation is largely affected by the activities of higher governments, coupled with unfavourable relationships, as well as insufficient finance and high level of unskilled and less educated people. This makes them highly ineffective and inefficient over the years. Despite all these, the study recommends that local governments be retained subject to thorough reforms and reasonable autonomy, as well as sufficient empowerment.