Concerns about banned clothing, items in some tertiary institutions

A direct-entry student from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Hafsat Ibrahim, hurriedly prepared for a test she had at 10am. At 9:00 AM, she left her home in Danraka, Zaria, Kaduna, but as she was about to enter the school gate, a fellow student reminded her that she was wearing an armless dress.

Alarmed, she recalled that school authorities had recently banned the wearing of a dress without arms on campus, and as a DE student, she wasn’t just getting used to the school rules. She completed a National Diploma in the Southwest and gained admission to college.

In October 2022, ABU released a dress code for members of the university community, including students, staff, and visitors. Among other things, the university banned certain hairstyles, ‘crazy’ jeans, armless clothing and colored sunglasses.

The student’s predicament reflects the current reality in many public tertiary institutions in Nigeria, including private schools.

Recently, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State, banned the use of cross bags on campus by students and other members of the school community. School authorities noted that the ban was designed to expose students who carry guns to harm others.

The latest directive came after the school previously banned some form of dress and imposed sanctions on straying students.

The ban notice, ”The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Indecent Dressing/Attitude to New and Returning Students”, stated that students hugging each other in the school community could face a semester suspension. Students wearing nose rings and extra rings on their ears risk a semester suspension, wearing a face mask unconventionally also attracts a semester suspension, while dyeing hair carries the same weight.”

The report added that female students who wore shorts and colored braid to school also risked a semester suspension, along with other forms of dress banned by school authorities.

Similarly, in 2018, the University of Ilorin, Kwara state banned the use of hair accessories by female students and prohibited male students from wearing underpants and mocking some “unacceptable hairstyles”.

In Kwara state, the state university in Malete has also issued some laws for its students in terms of dress.

For its part, the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, also established acceptable dress for its students.

For female students, shorts, anklets, nose piercings, crop/jump tops, long eyelashes, sheer clothing, colored hair, and multi-colored braids, among other things, would result in a one-semester suspension. In addition, dreadlocks, unconventional wearing of a face mask and ripped jeans, including by male students, would result in a semester suspension.

In the same vein, the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State also issued a student dress code in 2020, but it drew backlash from students. The school also banned colored braids and tinted hair, including for female students.

By the way, on Monday, January 23, 2022, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos State banned students from dressing immodestly. The school banned students from wearing tinted hair and colored braids, among other things.

Many other tertiary institutions in the country have also adopted similar strict codes across the country

Student comments

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of sanctions, a student from Kwara State University described the dress code as unjust and a violation of students’ fundamental human rights.

She said, “I don’t understand how using a nose ring has affected school management, or how having two earrings has hindered my ability to learn or understand what is being taught in class. It is a gross violation of our rights and we have to accept it because there are no alternatives.”

She urged stakeholders to take the fight and asked student union leaders to hold a meeting with the school to review some of the orders.

Another student from Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos State, who declined to give her name, stated that the rules were unnecessary cultural enforcement by the school board.

She commented: ‘School authorities need to understand that things are changing. Some things can’t be shoved down people’s throats. We also have the right to discern what they think is right or wrong. How does wearing fitted clothing, rolling up sleeves or wearing a face mask affect the knowledge I want to gain? The school board can do better than this. These codes are too rigid.”

Speaking on the matter, the Public Relations Officer, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Mubarak Bankole, stated that the recent ban on cross-bags in the school was to avoid students carrying ammunition on campus.

However, he noted that the ban affected some innocent students who only use the bag for books and other school materials.

He: “The student union is currently working to ensure that crossbags are used. But many may be subject to searches, especially those who are suspicious in the school community.

His counterpart at Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Abdulbasheet Abdulsalam, said that when gaining admission, students at the school had to swear an oath requiring them to abide by the rules issued by the school authorities.

Expert Responses

Hassan Soweto, the National Coordinator of the Education Rights Campaign, described dress codes in the tertiary education subsector as contrary to the tradition of a system of tertiary institutions.

He said: “Higher institutions are meant to be universalizing institutions that bring together skills, knowledge and ideas from different areas, regardless of borders and territories. That’s the idea of ​​a university. What it means is that it’s anachronistic and contradictory for schools to have dress codes for such an institution that brings different people together.

“Then what determines the dress code policy, the idea of ​​that is to serve a purpose of philosophy and culture, and as a Yoruba, Igbo or European there is an idea of ​​dress depending on the cultures. Now, if codes of conduct and dress are allowed in a university system, who determines these codes and in accordance with what culture or philosophy? Considering that a tertiary system should be universal.

Soweto stated that the idea of ​​a dress code was a violation of the principles of the tertiary education system.

He added: “It violates the rights and privileges of the youth and students who are considered adults according to the constitution. The constitution guarantees the right to the dignity of the human person to every Nigerian citizen, especially those who are 18 years and older. That means that codes of universities, colleges and colleges go against the part of the constitution that guarantees the dignity of the human person.”

He further said that based on the foregoing, the dress code in varsities was illegal.

In response, a human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, commented that the rules were ridiculous and unnecessarily presumptuous on the part of the school authorities.

He noted: “These students are adults, which means they have the right to decide what they are supposed to wear. There are specialized courses such as Law, Nursing, Medical Sciences and others where dress codes apply due to the profession. Apart from that, I find this regulation insignificant and an infringement of the students’ rights. I can find no justification for that.”

He stated that the regulations came at an unnecessary moral cost, noting that in the Western world the emphasis was not on those petty things, but on the quality of education, which the country’s tertiary institutions should focus on.

Effiong said, “The idea is for students to go to varsities to do research. They are intended to be a universal place of learning and knowledge acquisition. The conceptualization of dressing must be taken into account. When you start tying your students’ hands on how to express themselves, it becomes a departure from what a tertiary institution should be. It’s called a tertiary institution for a reason. It is not primary school, secondary school or kindergarten.

An adult is supposed to be able to choose what they want to wear as long as the bandage is not overly provocative. Of course, we are not saying that indecent clothing should be tolerated, but what we call indecent is also relative. A public university has nothing to do with how a student’s hair should be. It’s not a teacher’s job, because when you go to the schools, you see teachers with long beards.

“Do teachers have a dress code? It’s absolutely nonsensical to me. If a university is going to have a dress code, this must apply to rectorates, deans, department heads, teachers and non-academic staff of the schools. If there was a dress code, it should be for everyone.”

Effiong noted that when students were attacked about how to dress under the guise of formative characters, it amounted to an insult and a distraction from what a tertiary institution should be.

“Schools should pay attention to research and poor quality of education that students receive. It seems that many of them are hiding under the cards of moral tutelage to divert attention from their failure to influence qualitative knowledge and research,” he said.

ASUP’s position

On the matter, Anderson Ezeibe, the national president of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, said the union was not aware of such rules being rolled out in some polytechnics.

He said, “Well, I wouldn’t know the background of some of the rules because each institution has its own particularities and experiences that lead to such rules.”

He noted that such codes violated the students’ right to dignity as enshrined in the constitution.

Ezeibe stated, “If your right is such that it endangers the safety of another, like what we have at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, then the rules may matter.”

He urged the Government of the Students’ Union in tertiary institutions to engage the school authorities on both sides to solve the problems such moral codes raise.

He added: “From some of the rules you described, some of the sanctions could be perceived as extreme and in certain cases it is something that the student union government should be able to resolve with management.

“The students have their representatives and as an organized body it is up to them to discuss such issues with the school authorities. If there are points that students are not comfortable with, they should be able to resolve this with their management.”

Attempts to get the response from the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, were unsuccessful.

He did not respond to calls to his mobile phone, nor to a text message sent as of the time this report was filed.