CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Indecent appearance has come to characterize the dress pattern of many students on the campuses of higher learning in Nigeria. There is hardly any higher institution of learning in this country that is not faced with this nauseating problem (Articlesbase.com, 2011). The way students on these campuses of learning particularly, the female ones, dress seductively leaves much to be desired. What the girls call skirts that they wear is just “one inch” longer than their pants. When they put on such dresses, they struggle to sit down, find difficulty in climbing machines, cross gutters as well as pick anything from the ground. Apart from the skimpy and tight fitting nature of these dresses, they are again transparent; revealing certain parts of the bodies that under normal dressing patterns ought to be hidden away from the glare of people (Egwim, 2010).
In the case of boys, their pattern of dress is different. It makes them to look so dirty and very unattractive with unkempt hairs and dirty jeans having pockets of holes deliberately created around the knees and the lower part of the trousers allowed to flow on the ground because they go through their heals into their legs as socks. The waist of their trousers are lowered and fastened tightly at the middle of the two bottom lobes to reveal their boxers. And when they are walking, they drag their legs and one of their hands particularly, the left one, cupping their invisible scrotum as if they will fall to the ground if not supported (Gushee 2004). Many of them because of how they dressed had at one time or the other become victims of rape, lured into prostitution, used for ritual purpose, unable to complete their education and engage in other ancillary social and moral problems like cultism and lying to mention these few (Olori, 2003).
Although, there are no universally acceptable way or ways of dressing, dresses are meant to serve some definable purposes, country or region notwithstanding. They are part of a peoples’ culture and they define their tribal or ethnic identity. Apart from dresses being a means for cultural identity, they are for ornamental or aesthetic purposes, for protection of the body against harsh weather conditions as well as for covering the intimate parts of the body (Answer.com, 2011; & Articlesbase.com, 2011). These purposes are important especially as they form major aspects of a person’s personality. But as important as these purposes are, they have been defeated by the generation of Nigerian youths (Articlesbase.com, 2011). Their dress patterns are most times anti-African, and are invented. They usually dress in a manner that does not show that they are responsible (nigerianfilms.com, 2009). The African culture and particularly that of Nigeria encourage modesty in appearance as do the Christian and Islamic religions where the larger population of these youths claims to be worshipping God, and this has raised lots of concern and worry among citizens of the country (Onekutu & Adama, 2007). It is for this very reason that this research project attempts to counsel students about the cause effects of dressing indecently as well as suggests solutions that could remedy the further spread of this immoral act on campuses of learning in Nigeria.
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