Socio-economic Development of Rural Women: Their Perspective- A Case Study of Layin Zomo, Zaria, Nigeria

IntroductionThe government alongside other actors have initiated diverse intervention and projects, targeted at spurring the development of rural women.However till date, irrespective of recorded development programmes; statistics on rural women in Nigeria, shows that many are poor, are subject to poor standard of living, and far from being categorized as socially or economically developed.Popoola (2010), explicitly posit that the current state of rural women in Nigeria, entails being branded or identified with factors of under-development that characterizes the geographical location where they reside.These factors include poor income, poverty, hunger, diseases, lack of potable water, good shelter, low access to medical attention, and so forth, all of which are indicative of socio-economic under-development.Furthermore, the UN Women Watch (2018), notes that rural women are most vulnerable to the issues of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, genderbased violence, gender-based discrimination, social constraints and lack voice and representation in the society.Clearly development attempts have fallen short of expectations, and failed to completely propel rural women to a status of 'socio-economically developed'.This have raised several curiosity and criticism as to why interventions for rural women have failed.Several criticism by communication scholars have significantly centered on the non-involvement and participation of rural people in the development projects and processes.For instance, Paul, Agba, & Chukwurah, (2014).Critiques that 'a top-down approach to project formulation has always been adopted in Nigerian rural development process, with the bottom-up approach being mostly ignored or neglected'.This has resulted in rural dwellers disassociating themselves from such initiatives, and perhaps explains the failures of previous development initiatives targeted at rural women.For development to be sustainable it has to be participatory, and involve all stakeholders in the planning and implementation process.Or else there is bound to be negative repercussions on the actualization and longevity of development initiatives.Communication scholars suggest that communication be used as a tool for integrating all stakeholders' participation.This argument finds its basis in the discourse of participatory communication approaches and suggest that only when people at the grassroots are involved in development process can rural development be truly realized.In the discourse of rural development in Nigeria, scholars and statistics have revealed that rural women in northern Nigeria, face a greater brunt of the challenges associated with rural areas, because of mass under-development and higher rates of poverty in northern Nigeria.Moghalu (2019), former deputy governor of the CBN accentuates that northern Nigeria is afflicted by underdevelopment, is the poverty capital of Nigeria, and ranks far behind in various factors of development than it southern counter-parts.Moghalu also notes that in addition, rural women in northern Nigeria are limited by the factor of religion.Similarly, northern rural communities have been observed to practice cultures/traditions