(By Anyiam Nnaemeka)
“ Truth is, a lady who ‘shows some flesh’
torments a man’s senses far more than a
totally nude one, for men are turned on hard
by sight. Their imaginations run wild; they get
hooked; soon they become willing victims all
their lives. Women know this, I am sure “ .
MANY a Southerner might ask what the Hijab is.
To this ‘mystery’, I have shed some light. The
Hijab is a veil that covers the head and chest and
is particularly worn by a Moslem woman beyond
the age of puberty in the presence of adult males
outside of her immediate family. According to the
encyclopedia of Islam and Muslim World, modesty
in the Qu’ran concerns both men and women’s
gaze, gait, garments and Instruments; and the Qu’ran
admonishes Muslim women to dress modestly and
cover their breasts and genitals.
In my youth, when overt religious chauvinism still
had the best of me, I never understood the Hijab. I
perhaps even loathed it. I lent myself to the
otherwise ‘Western’ school of thought that it was
merely some fabric worn by some uncivilised,
uneducated ilk of women enslaved by their
husbands under the guise of religion. However,
spending time in Zamfara State opened my eyes
and I nearly wish all our southern ladies wore
Hijabs.
Our Southern schools and streets are filled with
cute girls with very ‘generous’ dress codes. Outside
your door, girls on bum shorts litter the corridor.
Get downstairs you find ladies doing laundry on
lust inspiring apparels. We are used to leggings
with no ‘long top’ to cover the bum; so tight you
see the genitals and panties well carved out by the
clothing. We’re used to all forms of skimpy
clothing – flaunting bra straps; see-through tops,
free flash of cleavages, etc. This has become
normal; at school, in the church, at work,
everywhere! And if you live here long enough, you
get used to it. You stop complaining and even
start ‘enjoying’ the sight.
For National Youth Service (NYSC), I was
deployed to Zamfara. Though the Sharia seemed to
have condensed upon Yerima’s exit, the vestiges
remained. Boys and girls couldn’t even live in the
same camp.
Some day we drive past the Federal College of
Education Technical (the first all-girls College of
Education I had seen), and I expect to see instant
activity. Perhaps a couple of bars by the side with
loud music and happy young ladies sipping booze
with their men; a couple of lewd damsels waiting
on car flaunting men; or a bunch of girls on skimpy
clothes, seeing their men off and exchanging
prolonged hugs. I wanted to see ‘chicks’ bending
down and selecting cheap, used clothes; fixing fake
hair and nails, throwing colour on their faces,
window shopping or just standing around and
looking good. Perhaps I was only expecting to see
life as I knew it. To my chagrin…NONE OF THE
ABOVE! Just a bunch of young ladies wearing maxi
hijabs that mostly ran from head to toe, obviously
detached from male folk. Fresh feces without flies, I
thought.
I took a couple of weeks to tour the town and
the stark truth began to settle even more. No
bars, no ‘ethanoic’ happiness, no Davido! Every
female, young or old, great or small, seemed to be
wrapped in bed sheet-size hijabs. See, I had
encountered ‘hijab-wearing’ ladies before now. I
was quite used to the ‘exposed’ Moslem ladies
from rich families mostly in Abuja, Kaduna, Kano,
Jos, Kogi and Yoruba land with their short stylish
hijabs that could even pass for sexy; allowing the
shape of the bum and busts be seen and felt,
provoking all the undesirable effects our Southern
ladies exude. But here was I, stuck on ladies
engulfed in fabric! Instantly, I missed home.
After two months in Zamfara, my libido had
dropped a great notch. I could pass for a monk in
thought and deed. These ladies were graciously
and totally wrapped. No curves to behold, no stray
cleavage and bra strap, no busts, no bum; nothing
to mess with your head or thoughts and get your
mind trying to figure out whatever is under that
see-through top. Living there had some sort of
purging effect on my sight and consequently my
mind. The sacred parts of a female’s body
gradually started to become sacred again and
seemed to earn a right to be covered, and for once,
I began to admire and respect both the Hijab, and
the ladies who make a habit of wearing it. And oh
yes: I did find that brazen immorality was very low
in this part. The vibe was more like – ‘if-you-
want-her,-marry-her’ rather than the ‘if-you-want-
her-then-get-in-her-pants’ idiosyncrasy that’s
predominant down South.
It seems our ladies just want to go naked. We’ve
watched the skirts grow shorter and ‘huggier’. We
(everybody) let them wear two-legged apparels for
sports and better covering; they turn it to ‘bum
shorts’…perhaps for want of fabric. They change
from pants to tight as undies, but knowing they
had tights on…they started to sit anyhow. The tight
is now leggings which they used to wear with a
long top to cover the bum. Today, in our faces, the
long tops disappeared, leaving us with plain skin
tight – a brazen case of underwear going to
school, work or church. Nowadays they don’t even
wear pants with it, and it’s getting even more
transparent! Today they wear see-through tops
with a flawless bra underneath. Their tops must
reveal bra straps somehow, and the cleavage must
come pouring forth!
Truth is, a lady who ‘shows some flesh’ torments
a man’s senses far more than a totally nude one,
for men are turned on hard by sight. Their
imaginations run wild; they get hooked; soon they
become willing victims all their lives. Women know
this, I am sure.
I sometimes wonder how many young men out
there are addicted, perverted, and sexually
bedeviled by a few stray sights they happened
upon on the street all because a sister wants to be
called ‘sexy’. We lament that faithful husbands
have flown from amongst women, we decry ill-
gotten wealth. We lament that standards have
fallen, that men ask for sex to give women jobs,
roles, marks, admissions, favours, contracts,
money. And the United Nations cries – emancipate
the woman!
However, by your dressing you suggest that ‘sex’
is a currency you are willing to pay in and start up
this vicious circle of promiscuity that’s killing the
society. Jay-Z sings fully clothed from skull to
foot; the ‘add-on’ lady simply wears thongs and
wiggles her butt? I feel certain that if a bill is
passed banning certain clothes in public, women
will vehemently protest their right to be naked, tell
us we are living in the stone ages all over again;
and fill us with all that ‘woman emancipation’
mantra.
Consequently, our three-year-old boys have
learnt to poke at their sisters and classmates,
because you showed them how. Our sons approach
puberty, the site of nudity on the streets pushes
them ‘pornward’, and by 15, they have pierced
themselves with many sexual sorrows. Such a boy
will grow to be a philanderer, a pedophile, an
abuser of women and an unworthy father. See how
you make perverts out of us. See why you must
stop!
We all are culpable. From the man who calls her
‘hot and sexy’, speaking more from lust than love,
to the lady who courts attention at all costs,
selling womanhood short. From the father who’s
not always there, to the mother who feels she’s
just being like her generation…and refuses to
scream, correct and insist. From the media or
marketing professional who feels – sex sells, to the
customer service and public relations peeps who
think this lewdness is the best way to reel in
customers. From the designer of these kinds of
clothes, to the ‘stars’ who teach our kids that this
is how to be. We all are!
Hence, if women cannot all wear Hijabs like the
Moslem women do, at least get a moral one, dress
modestly!
• Nnaemeka, a youth corps member in Zamfara State. http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/features/youth-speak/189587-the-beauty-and-moral-of-hijabs 
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