The Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) has launched the Grannies Network for Change (G-NEC), a programme targeting gender-based violence in Kano and Jigawa states. The initiative was unveiled in Kano on Monday, focusing on empowering grandmothers as key agents of change within households. Amina Sani, Kano State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, said grandmothers were chosen because they are custodians of culture and moral values. She cited dRPC research showing grandmothers hold significant influence over gender norms in multigenerational homes, often shaping decisions that affect wives and daughters.
Sani explained that while men may listen to religious leaders, grandmothers are the dominant voices within domestic settings, reinforcing traditions that guide family behaviour. The project seeks to harness this influence to shift household dynamics toward safer, more equitable practices. It is designed to align with northern Nigeria's social structures, where elders are traditionally respected. The core objective is to prevent GBV by transforming beliefs and decision-making through culturally resonant messaging delivered by grandmothers.
In Jigawa, Hadiza Abdulwahab, through her Director of Planning Aminu Umar, affirmed the state's commitment to the project. The initiative aims to protect young girls and married women while improving girls' school enrollment. Jigawa plans to institutionalise the programme for long-term impact. dRPC Executive Director Judith-Ann Walker stated G-NEC will support grandmothers, village heads, and Imams as male allies in changing behaviours. The project also targets economic rights denials linked to early marriages and poor education for girls.
Amina Sani's endorsement of grandmothers as frontline defenders against gender-based violence reveals a quiet but strategic pivot in how northern Nigeria is confronting deep-rooted social harm—not by challenging tradition, but by repositioning it. The decision to centre grandmothers, drawn from dRPC's research on intra-household influence, suggests a recognition that top-down edicts rarely shift domestic power dynamics, but a grandmother's word often does.
This approach reflects an unspoken truth in many northern communities: while public discourse on gender is dominated by male religious and political figures, private morality is frequently policed and preserved by elderly women. By formalising their role, the G-NEC project sidesteps cultural resistance that often sinks gender initiatives in conservative areas. The fact that both Kano and Jigawa states are backing the programme—and Jigawa intends to institutionalise it—signals a rare alignment between grassroots insight and state-level policy.
For rural families, particularly girls in multigenerational homes, this could mean slower acceptance of early marriage and greater tolerance for female education, not because of legal enforcement, but because Grandma now says so. The real shift lies not in new laws, but in who gets to interpret tradition.
This fits a broader trend where Nigerian development actors are abandoning blanket solutions in favour of culturally embedded strategies—using existing hierarchies, not fighting them.
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