FASHION IN NIGERIA: DRESSING TO KILL

The new trend of dressing in Nigeria is to say the least, deplorable. Our womenfolk are at the wrong end of the craze called fashion; nowadays women of all ages dress to capture all eyes, in the event of which they have gone beyond the mark. In the 1960s and early 1970s when mini and midi skirts reigned, there was a lot of criticism of how women bare their knees. Such critics would cry their heats out if they were to witness the manner of dressing by the present day Nigerian women.

          All religions have enjoined that women should dress properly so as to veil their honour. The body parts of women are considered sacred in our society. In Islam, for example, a woman, married or not, is only allowed to expose her face and hands, all other body parts are to be covered. We read in many verses of the Bible where women are chastised to cover their heads and bodies. Sadly these divine injunctions were thrown to the dogs. Religion aside, common sense demands that women should not expose their body parts. In the olden days every youngster desired to view an exposed female anatomy; most often school kids were caught peeping into female lavatories, adults were not left out as they cherish any slight opportunity to see part of the female body. Today the situation is such that the female anatomy is always there on the streets for everybody’s gaze. That has led to the degradation of the honour bestowed on the womanhood. You just can’t get onto the street of virtually every town and city in Nigeria without seeing nakedness, as every girl and even married and older women expose their bodies to be noticed. Our institutions of higher learning are the worst hit in this craze. Female students were so infected that most of them have forgotten how to tie a decent wrapper and head tie, very few of them dress decently while at home, but drop such dresses when coming to the campuses and carry along tight fitting jeans, trousers, sleeveless tops and all kinds of atrocious dresses that expose the pubic area, the tummy, navel and upper breasts. It is so disgusting to watch students dressed in such regalia going into lecture halls and even attending social and formal gatherings. Very few lecturers in some northern schools have attempted to dissuade and repress such shameless act by sending out skimpily dressed girls from their classes. Most of them have not succeeded, and many of the lecturers and schools’ authorities do actually savour and encourage the nakedness. Parents are the biggest culprits, they inspire their kids and purchase all types of indiscriminate clothes for their daughters, some of these girls grow up seeing their mothers dressing in body hugs and other exposed dresses, and they tend to copy them. The larger society is not left out: People don’t come out to publicly scold our womenfolk and their crazy mode of dressing. I always feel aggrieved to hear men voicing out such compliments as “I like your dress”, “you look beautiful”, “you’re too much” etc. to females that dresses in the most ravishing and exposed manner. Such words impel them to dress even more wretched.

      The society ought to rebuke, in the strongest terms, the scandalous mode of dressing by Nigerian women. The honour of women deserve to be safeguarded, most of them are tempted to walk the streets barely naked, in an attempt to catch the eyes of boys and men in general, they have invariably invited public loathing. Schools’ authorities can do a lot in stalling this misbehaviour by imposing strict guidelines on dressing code in our campuses. No student should be allowed into the classes if not properly dressed; none should be allowed to walk naked around the schools premises. Parents should be advised to stop buying exposed and indiscriminate clothes for their daughters, girls should be forbidden from wearing everything that do not properly clad their vital body parts. When they are leaving for their schools, they should be made to park along decent dressing. Religious leaders have the responsibility of preaching against the ugly trend. Recently I read an encouraging report that the Catholic Church will attempt to regulate nudity in places of worship by imposing the use of head ties into churches during wedding ceremonies, that will be a springboard towards total prohibition elsewhere.

There was a popular Kessingsheen television advert in the 1980s, which goes with the slogan: “Looking good is serious business”. Everybody aspire to look good, no father, mother or husband want to see his or her women looking shabby or dirty. In Nigeria our women are bastardising the quest to look good and have legalized nakedness. There have been cases of rape and molestations of women whose assailants were “attracted” by the unclad victim whose dressing has revealed too much. This however, is not concluding all rape cases are incited by the bizarre dressing, but the bottom line is that many do foment unwarranted rape and harassment. Looking good has through turned to “fatal business”.

No sensible person can dispute the fact that our women look the most beautiful when dressed in the traditional African attire. Every tribe in the country has its native wear, and the sanctity of the womanhood is veiled in them. In an attempt towards Westernisation we copy the Western fashion and by so doing our women looks misshapen and ugly. In most cases the dress don’t suit them, they look awesome; the very fat, pot bellied, the most slender, protuberant, bosomed, kwashiorkoid, etc wants to look “good” and seductive thereby revealing what should not be revealed by dressing in all kinds of body hugs and other satanic dresses. 

If the horrendous indecent fashion by Nigerian women is left unchecked I am afraid very soon our young girls will begin to walk the streets in panties and bras, or even completely naked. I recently had a nauseating experience when attending to a patient, a married woman for that matter, whose mode of dressing had revealed every thing. I was too incensed to attend to her and have to tell her so. Her response was as your might expect: “you guys are living in past ancient world”, she angrily said in a fake American accent. If the modern world is a world of nakedness, if it is a world where indecency had substituted moral decorum, I will prefer to live in the ancient world. It is high time we reject in totality the debasement of women dignity in our country, otherwise we will have a BIG case to answer when we come face to face with God’s judgment in the Day of Reckoning.     

NB-This article was originally written and published at http://gamji.com on 24th October, 2004. A teenage girl I saw today dressed in the most bizarre manner made me to reproduce it here.