In an environment of a plethora of lifestyles in the name of fashion, it is not inconceivable that educational institutions would be ill-at-ease and, therefore, feel obligated to protect their students from being tainted. Faith-based universities and colleges, in particular, rightly believe they have a responsibility protecting their students from unwholesome influences in the larger society, even though they may have crossed over to adulthood and a new temperament is now running in their veins. The environment and culture cannot also be ruled out as factors influencing decision-making authorities to draw a line on conduct that is permissible in their sphere and in institutions, and the behaviour that is not. As Prof. Wale Omole is wont to say to us on the Editorial Board of which he is the chairman: university means the universe in the city.
He should know; he was one time the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). This means a university is a place of diversity in people and culture seeking the highest education and learning, and engaged in research. Even then, the influence of the environment and culture cannot be completely thrown out of the window. All in all, the variations are not many. All the universities that have released dress code for their students have placed emphasis on decency. Inappropriate dressing is frowned at everywhere.
At the Federal University, Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, students are to dress decently at all times, especially to lecture halls, tutorials, laboratories, workshops and the library. Students clothing should not be vulgar, offensive or obscene. They should not wear things like full-face veils, motorcycle helmets and masks for easy identification. Male students are expected to wear clothes that cover their arms, armpits, chests, waists. Sleeveless shirts or T-shits, short knickers are not allowed. Sagging of trousers is prohibited. Male students are banned from wearing earrings, scarves, braided hair, dread lock, coloured hair and wearing of bangles. Female students are not to wear more than one earring at a time. Piercing of nose, tongue, or any part of the body is not allowed and so is dropping scarves. So are sleeveless dresses are prohibited and leg bracelets. Female students should wear dresses that cover their busts, abdominal parts, midriff, arms and armpits, knees, thighs, belly, waist, buttocks and other sensitive parts. Spaghetti tops, wicked straps, tubeless, bum shorts are not allowed. Female students are to wear hairstyles that are neat. Coloured hairs, weavon, wigs and attachments are prohibited. All dresses, trousers and skirts must be below the knees. Male students are to maintain low haircut. Rough, permed or relaxed hair is not allowed. Sleeveless dresses without jacket are not allowed, that is wearing clothes that expose the armpits and body. The use of full-face veil by female is not allowed and all students are encouraged to always wear their student’s identification card.
First offender will be given a form to fill for violation of the code. If it happens for the second time, the student’s photograph will be taken and published in the university’s special bulletin and given a warning. For the third time, he will or she will face the Dress Code Committee. If found guilty, the fellow will be rusticated for one semester and the parents will be invited.
At Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the dress code is not just for students. It covers the staff as well. At Bowen University, Iwo, there is what is called Student Information Handbook which provides vital information to guide students on social and academic interactions. The 45-page Guide Book spells out the university’s dress code and also laying emphasis on decency. Male students are not permitted to keep bushy/unkempt hair, beard, sideburn and moustache except for medical reasons or where otherwise authorized. Male students cannot wear T-shirt and face-cap during official hours. Braided hair, earrings, necklaces, bangles, hand and ankle chains, nose rings and beads are prohibited. Wearing shorts of any kind outside hostels is not allowed. Female students’ dress for lectures or general campus wear should consist of skirt suit, skirt and blouse or gown with a pair of neat, covered shoes or sandals. Transparent, net materials or tight-fitting blouse, gowns, sweaters or skirts are not permitted. Dresses with low necklines or dresses that do not fully cover the shoulders and armpits are prohibited. Skirts or gowns should cover the knee and must not be slit above the knee. Students are expected to always button the sleeves of their long-sleeved shirts. Being a faith-based institution like Bowen University, the Redeemer’s University at Ede has similar gender-restrictive dress code.
At Ebonyi State University, each faculty has been asked to choose its own dress code for its students. The university’s General Administration said the code is not only aimed at ensuring that students dress decently but they can be identified by their faculties. The University of Ilorin; Baze University, Abuja all have dress codes for their students; similarly, Admiralty University at Ubusa in Delta State and, of course, the University of Lagos, all with little or no variations. Obafemi Awolowo University rolled out its own last month.
The measures setting minimum standards of dressing are indicative of the recognition of the rapid decline by a segment of our leadership in the conduct that has overtaken the land and which inexorably has crept into the institutions of higher learning. It i s enheartening that the Ivory Towers have taken on the challenge. The youths are the most vulnerable in these times. They soak in the unsavoury influences streaming out in radiations from the larger society whereas in the order of development, they are the first to repel them, being within the age of melancholic temperament. It is a period they are emerging from the care-free period of childhood driven by what is called sanguine temperament. The scale dropping from the inner eyes when they are connected with the generative power, they are seized by the longing for idealism, the temperament of dreaming and longing for wholesomeness. To them the world is upside down and they seek to straighten it.
It is the age of we no go gree in higher institutions. It is the time a girl looks at her mother straight in the eye and says Mom, that was your time, not mine. The young man first tasting the moment of adulthood says to the father, “I beg your pardon, Daddy you are wrong”. Isn’t it, therefore, an irony that it is the one in the years of full estate they should keep on their toes for idealism who are calming them and turning their gaze to propriety. The older ones have mixed and are pursuing things other than idealism; they are already sucked in by or have experienced some of the ills of the society. It is those who are in the period of choleric temperament, the years of man’s full estate, man and woman who are in temperament that urges them to action and achievement. They are vulnerable to moving away from nobleness in pursuit of power, money and influence, setting bad examples for the generation coming behind them. I am not implying that the leaders and governing councils are bad and unworthy. If they were they would not have been filled with disgust at the rot and sordid conduct of a great many of the youths in our institutions and out there in the larger world.
The students in various higher institutions, therefore, have our vice-chancellors and governing councils to thank for saving them from the steep decline to the abyss. When a lady is scantily dressed and thereby exposes her body, she incites the generation of impure thoughts from as nearly as many men that may cross her path at the very moment. All the impure thoughts are attached to her. These gather to form power centres in the beyond which in their out streaming attract similar thought forms and are strengthened. In no time she is weighed down by the strengthened dross that has attached itself to her and in accordance with the Law of Gravity, she is dragged down and unable to resist unworthy thoughts assailing her; she is confused and soon becomes a foot mat for every roadside hawker. That is even on this earth. In an area of the Beyond, in the plane of Fine Gross Matter, there are beings that weave the thoughts awaiting redemption without which ascent to the Light Regions is impossible. This is even in the plane of matter closest to us not yet the Ethereal Plane. This is why in higher knowledge available today for all mankind, it is said, the way is far and great the exertion.
We read from the incomparable Work in its uniqueness, In the Light of Truth, the Grail Message by Abd-ru-shin, the painting of a vivid picture of entrapment through practices such as body exposure we consider harmless:
“What is being preached today under the fine guise of progress is nothing but a veiled encouragement of utter shamelessness, the poisoning of every higher intuitive perception in man. It is the greatest pestilence that ever befell humanity. And strange: it seems as if so many had only been waiting for a plausible excuse to debase themselves. To countless people it is very welcome!
“But he who knows the spiritual laws operating in the Universe will turn away in disgust from today’s pursuits. Let’s take just one of the ‘most harmless’ pleasures: ‘Mixed bathing’.
‘’’To the pure all things are pure’! These words have such a pleasant sound that many things are permissible under their protection. But just let us consider the most simple ethereal happenings in such a bathing-place. Let us assume that of thirty persons of both sexes, twenty-nine are really pure in every respect. This is an assumption which is completely impossible from the very start; for the opposite would be more correct, and even then still rare. But let us assume it.
“Stimulated by what he sees, impure thoughts arise in the mind of the one, the thirtieth bather, although his outward behaviour may be absolutely irreproachable. These thoughts are immediately embodied ethereally in living thought-forms, which move towards and attach themselves to the object of his glances. This is a defilement, whether or not it leads to any remarks or improprieties! The person thus contaminated will carry about this dirt, which is capable of attracting similar straying thought-forms. Thereby they become denser, ever denser around this person, and may finally confuse and poison the victim, as a parasitic creeper often destroys the healthiest tree.
“Such are the ethereal happenings in so-called ‘harmless’ mixed bathing, at party games, dances or the like. It should be born in mind, however, that in any case it is just all those particularly desirous of having their thoughts and senses excited by such exhibitions who will visit these bathing-places and pleasure haunts! It is not difficult to explain what filth is thus generated, without anyone being outwardly aware of it in the gross material sense.
“It is also obvious that this steadily increasing and condensing mass of sensual thought-forms must gradually influence countless people who of themselves do not seek such things. At first vague thoughts of a similar nature arise in them; in time these grow stronger and more alive, being ceaselessly nourished by the various expressions of so-called ‘progress’ around them. And so one after another they glide along into the viscous dark stream, in which the power to apprehend true purity and morality is ever more obscured, until finally everything is dragged into the depth of uttermost darkness.
“First of all, these opportunities and incitements for such rapidly growing abnormalities must be done away with! They are nothing but breeding centres into which the pestilential vermin of immoral human beings can cast their thoughts, which often spring up luxuriantly and spread destruction over all humanity; creating ever new breeding grounds which finally form only one huge field of noxious growths, exuding a poisonous stench that also suffocates the good.
“Wrench yourself out of this delirium, which like narcotic only appears to invigorate, but in reality has a weakening and destroying effect!
“It is natural, though sad, that it is just the female sex which is again the first to exceed all bounds, and which has sunk without any scruple to utter shamelessness in their attire.
“However, this only proves that the explanation about ethereal happenings is correct. It is just woman, gifted by nature with a stronger intuitive ability, who first and more deeply absorb the poison of the tainted ethereal world of thoughtforms, albeit quite unconsciously. She is more at the mercy of these dangers, for which reason she is also the first to be carried away, and overstep every limit incredibly quickly and conspicuously”.
What stuff man reads is all part of the stimulating agents. The Message adds:
“Look around you! Observe what people read, how they dance, how they dress! By tearing down all barriers between the two sexes, the present time is more than ever anxious systematically to obscure the purity of the intuitive perception, thus to distort it and give it misleading masks, and ultimately, if at all possible, to smother it.
“They speak of the emergence of a free independent humanity, of a development of inner stability, of physical culture, the beauty of the nude, ennobled sports, and of education to bring to life the saying: ‘To the pure all thigs are pure’. In short: Upliftment of the human race by laying aside all ‘prudery’, thus producing the noble and free human being who is to carry the future! Woe to him who dares to remonstrate!
“It is a mad whirlpool of foul water, spreading a stupefying, poisoning atmosphere which, like the effect of morphine, induces mental delusions”.
While Obafemi Awolowo University shares some of the dress codes with faith-based universities, there are others which are exclusive to it. At Ife, haircut with inscription; tattoo/indelible markings for male students are prohibited, Tattered jeans, bomb shorts, see-through wears, nose, mouth, eye, extra ring cowries for females and backless clothes, heavy make-ups hair plaiting and weaving by male students are banned. Violation of the codes in the first category that total 20 is punishable by rustication by one semester. In the second category consisting of five banned items, violators risk a more severe sanction. It is rustication for two semesters. These consist of inappropriate and unwelcome touching, kissing and hugging of opposite sex; massaging or sitting on the lap of opposite sex; wearing dreadlocks, hair braiding for male, coloured hair style for female all attract suspension for two semesters.
The students rejecting the code say punishment for violation is harsh and the dress code itself is an infringement on their fundamental rights. “We remain committed to protecting our rights.”
Students without knowing it are being saved from themselves–from inconceivable bitter consequences now and in the future. As explained in the foregoing, dresses that do not give dignity to either gender drags down. The conduct will avenge itself most bitterly even beyond an earth life. The Laws with which the Creator governs His Creation are unswerving, inflexible, immutable and self-acting; and in activity in all parts of Creation to mention just a few of their characteristics.
My error
In the conversation on the Ibom Air furore last week, ValueJet was inadvertently lumped into the Ibom Air fleet, a promising airline owned by Akwa Ibom State. It was a factual error which is regretted. ValueJet is owned by Mr. Kunle Soname, a businessman with a range of enterprises stretching into many areas of the economy.
