Government exists primarily to provide services that will make life worth living. Accordingly, local governments as third tier government are created to bring government closer to the people at the grassroots and for transformation of lives at the rural level. One of the ways of bringing government closer to the people at the grassroots is through the delivery of service in a satisfactory, timely, effective and adequate manner.This paper is therefore an examination of Local Government and Social Service Delivery in Nigeria. It argues that the constitutional mandate of local governments in terms of "function performance" has not been translated into reality. Thus, the paper concludes and recommends that local governments must attempt to overcome the challenges that have circumvented their performance. It is only by this can they be positioned to render cutting services in a timely, effective, adequate, prompt and satisfactory manner to justify their continuous existence and huge financial allocations to them.