‘No bra, no exam': How a university rule has triggered outrage in Nigeria

A Nigerian university, Olabisi Onabanjo University, is facing flak after a disturbing video surfaced online, showing female students being physically checked to ensure they were wearing bras before being allowed to sit for an exam. The checks were part of the university's dress code policy, aimed at maintaining a distraction-free environment' read more
A viral video shows female staff at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State physically checking whether female students were wearing bras before entering an exam hall. The move has sparked massive outrage. AI-generated representative image
A Nigerian university has come under fire after a disturbing video surfaced online, showing female students being physically checked to ensure they were wearing bras before being allowed to sit for an exam.
The footage, reportedly filmed at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Nigeria's southwestern Ogun State, shows female staff touching students' chests as they stood in line outside an examination hall, according to a BBC report.
The university has yet to release an official statement, but the video has already sparked a wave of outrage across social media, with many criticising the invasive and humiliating practice.
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Here's what we know so far.
What is university's 'no bra, no exam' rule
The viral video that sparked the storm shows female staff at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State physically checking whether female students were wearing bras before entering an exam hall.
The act, widely circulated on social media, was reportedly done to enforce the university's dress code. Staff are seen touching students' chests in line, supposedly to determine compliance with the rule.
Olabisi Onabanjo University OOU allegedly enforces the new 'No bra, No entry' policy as exams start yesterday🙆🏼‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/84LEPveGvZ — Oyindamola🙄 (@dammiedammie35) June 17, 2025
Student union leader Muizz Olanrewaju Olatunji took to X to defend the policy, saying it was 'a dress-code policy aimed at maintaining a respectful and distraction-free environment,' and that it encourages students 'to dress modestly and in line with the institution's values.'
He added that the policy was not a new one, and claimed the student union had been in talks with university officials to find alternative ways of addressing what the institution considers 'indecent dressing' – with a focus on respectful engagement between students and staff.
While the university isn't affiliated with any religious body, Nigeria as a country remains deeply conservative. With 53.5 per cent of the population identifying as Muslim and nearly 44 per cent as Christian, social expectations around modesty are often strictly upheld, especially in rural areas.
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A student, speaking to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said the university strictly enforces a moral code, and their clothes are always being checked.
Olatunji shared excerpts from what he said were the university's official guidelines, which define indecent dressing as any outfit that exposes 'sensitive body parts such as breasts, buttocks, nipples and belly-buttons,' or anything 'capable of making the same or opposite sex to lust after the student in an indecent manner.'
Student union leader of Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State Muizz Olanrewaju Olatunji defended the 'no bra', no exam' policy, saying it was 'a dress-code policy aimed at maintaining a distraction-free environment'. Image courtesy: X
Such rules are not unusual in Nigeria, where many universities impose dress codes. Female students are often banned from wearing miniskirts, while male students may be prohibited from having dreadlocks or wearing earrings.
A 'draconian' rule
The recent video has sparked an online firestorm, with many branding the practice sexist, outdated, and even criminal.
'This is harassment. People have different reasons for not wearing bras,' wrote a user on X. Another wrote, 'That's human rights violation. Sue them!!!'
Haruna Ayagi, a senior official from the Human Rights Network, told the BBC that the method used by the university could land it in legal trouble.
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'Unwarranted touches on another person's body is a violation and could lead to legal action,' Ayagi said. 'The university is wrong to adopt this method to curb indecent dressing.'
Human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong echoed those concerns, calling the bra policy 'draconian' and 'arbitrary.'
'Physically examining the bodies of students to determine whether they are wearing a bra or not is not only degrading but also undignifying,' he told CNN.
Effiong added that there could be medical reasons why a student might not wear a bra, and pointed out that the blanket enforcement of such a policy 'without exceptions, or without taking peculiarities into consideration is arbitrary,' and could result in lawsuits.
With input from agencies

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The Hindu

2 hours ago

• The Hindu

Sowing seeds of mistrust in Assam

Sobjer Ali is a man of routine. Every day, for nearly 50 years, he has travelled by boat between Kuntirchar Part 2, the village where he lives in Dhubri district of Assam, and Patharghat, where he ran a shop selling cattle feed. The routine, disturbed in the past sometimes by festivals, floods, and communal conflicts, was disrupted on June 14 when his world turned upside down. The shop that sustained Ali's family of six was one of the 110 deemed illegal and demolished by the local authorities. This happened a week after the body parts of cattle were allegedly found on successive days near a Hanuman temple about 2 kilometres away, triggering anger in the district. Dhubri, the headquarters of the Muslim-majority Dhubri district, is 290 km west of Guwahati. It is bounded by the Brahmaputra river and its tributary, Gadadhar, on three sides. The town stands close to where the Brahmaputra becomes the Yamuna after flowing past the India-Bangladesh border. Dhubri is also used as a metaphor by some communities and political parties to underline the fear that drives politics in Assam — of how the influx of people from Bangladesh can one day overrun 'indigenous' Indians. 'We have endured worse situations, but aage keu pete laathi maarey nai (no one snatched away our sources of livelihood earlier),' said Ali. 'We have been paying ₹50 per week to the municipality through a lessee who renews our lease every year. We barely had an hour to salvage our wares before the demolition started.' He said he cannot understand why he was punished for what miscreants did elsewhere in the town. Over the last few weeks, a string of similar incidents involving cattle have kept Dhubri on edge. On June 10, citing instances of pieces of meat being purportedly thrown in public places after Eid celebrations, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma alleged that beef is being 'weaponised' against Hindus in the State. Stressing that the Assamese people have to take a 'non-compromising' stance to push back 'illegal foreigners,' Sarma maintained that the State was waging a struggle against forces which had 'sympathisers' across the world. The spark Patharghat, a ferry point on the bank of the Brahmaputra in Dhubri, is about 200 metres from a park called the Netai Dhubuni Ghat. This was constructed in honour of a washerwoman, Dhubri, from whom the district gets its name. Flanking this park along an 800 m stretch of road are several places of worship that once made Dhubri a religious confluence. These include a Ram temple, a Kali temple, the Panchpeer dargah, the Gurudwara Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib, and an Armenian church. The offices of the Dhubri District Commissioner and Senior Superintendent of Police are located on the stretch from Patharghat to the Armenian church, which was converted into a ladies' club years ago. According to the Chief Minister, around Eid-al-Adha on June 7, 'miscreants' scribbled some 'provocative' words on the walls of some structures in this high-security zone. He suggested to the media that the words were written by people who belonged to Nobin Bangla, a group that reportedly espoused the merger of Dhubri with Bangladesh. He also said that the 'head of a cow' was discovered at the 35-year-old Hanuman temple in the town's Baluchar Ward No. 3 on June 8, the day after the qurbani (sacrifice) Eid. The Hanuman temple is situated on about half an acre of land owned by a man named Vishal Agarwal. He works as a distributor of soft drinks for the Dhubri region. Unlike conventional temples, it is a small, rectangular, tin-roofed concrete structure about 6 feet in height. This plot of land is surrounded by two lanes, a school, and the office of the Seemanta Chetana Mancha, an international-border-areas-specific wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Dhubri Baluchar Kabarsthan (cemetery) is located across one of the lanes, while an office of the Forest Department is across the other. The temple is also located about 50 m from the Dhubri Magistrate Colony and diagonally across the Iddgah Field, behind which is a Muslim locality. On the night of June 8, after the alleged sight of the cow's head sparked tension, the authorities dismantled 12 makeshift shops run by Muslims along the wall of the Iddgah Field after right-wing protesters claimed that they sold beef and other illegal items. The Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 2021, provides for the preservation of cattle by regulating their slaughter, consumption, and transportation in the State. Agarwal declined to speak on the beef controversy surrounding the temple on his plot. He said that much of the land used to be a jute warehouse until a decade ago. He also said that he had engaged Ramjan Ali Sheikh, the first man to be arrested when pieces of beef were again found on June 9, nearly at the same spot, as a guard, because Sheikh's uncle used to be the guard earlier. 'My son performed his duty diligently. Like any other day, he came home on the morning of June 9 for breakfast,' said Sheikh's mother, Amina Begum. 'Many policemen were posted in the area around the temple from the night before. In the morning, the police summoned my son as they suspected him of having placed the beef in the temple. He has been in lock-up since.' Hers is one of the seven Muslim families in the Hindu-majority Baluchar locality. According to Masud Zaman, an advocate associated with the Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the discovery of cattle body parts for the second time despite watertight security reflected a possible design to let the situation get out of hand. 'The police picked up 18 people randomly without going after the real culprits behind the incident. Some of us stayed at the police station until 2.30 in the morning on June 10 to get some of these people released. They included a minor boy, a kidney patient, a government employee on hospital duty, and a man with a terminally ill daughter,' he said. Among at least 50 others arrested over the next few days was Noor Islam Haque of Gaspara village, known to beg and sleep on the streets in the administrative hub of Dhubri. Zaman said that the local authorities handled the situation well after the first incident on June 8. A committee comprising members of the Seemanta Chetana Mancha, Muslims, and members of other organisations decided that they would maintain peace at any cost. 'After the second incident took place on June 9, schools were closed on June 10. But everything was normal from the next day,' he said. 'Then the Chief Minister arrived on June 13 and said that he would issue an order to shoot on sight those who were pelting stones. This gave the impression that there is total unrest in Dhubri.' A string of incidents From June 14, incidents similar to those at the Dhubri temple were reported elsewhere in Assam. The Chief Minister posted on X that beef was allegedly thrown near a Kali temple at Lakhipur in the adjoining Goalpara distric; the head of a cow was allegedly found at Borpukhuri in central Assam's Hojai for the second time in less than a week; and skulls of cows were allegedly discarded near a namghar, a neo-Vaishnavite prayer hall, in north-eastern Assam's Lakhimpur district. The police arrested more than a dozen people in connection with these incidents. Piklu Paul, the vice-president of the Dhubri unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said that the Hindus in the district have always lived under pressure. In the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, up to 14 people were killed and curfew was imposed for more than a month. There was relatively less violence in 2012 as a fallout of the Bodo tribal-Muslim conflict in the adjoining Bodoland Territorial Region. 'We are grateful to the Chief Minister for shoot-at-sight orders, which have kept the miscreants indoors after dusk. Dhubri could have burned had this tough step not been taken,' he said. Senior Congress leader Rakibul Hussain, who ended the AIUDF's 15-year run in the Dhubri Lok Sabha constituency in 2024, chose to stay out of the controversy. But Kazi Mahmudul, a local Congress leader, was ready to speak. 'We have no complaints if those responsible for such a heinous act are punished according to the law, but carrying out demolition drives ostensibly linked to the Hanuman temple incident is painful,' he said. 'The government has the right to evict people from the land it owns, but there is a process to be followed. One has to give time to people who have been living in certain areas for decades.' Other party leaders said no 'true Muslim' would place beef near a place of worship of people belonging to another religion. The drive has hit Jaharuddin, a Dhubri resident, who pulled a handcart to deliver goods from Patharghat to dealers across the town. 'The government should be lenient with demolitions so that we survive,' he said. Cattle smuggling Dhubri residents believe that an application filed by the Dhubri Iddgah Committee to the district authorities, seeking to bring in about 4,000 cattle for qurbani (sacrifice) on Eid, was the genesis of the trouble. The committee issued 'membership cards', valid up to June 7, to procure the cattle. 'But the number of cattle brought in from West Bengal via Boxirhat (town bordering Assam) from June 3-5 was some 4 lakh,' a member of the Seemanta Chetana Mancha said. 'This caused a traffic jam on the highway. Thousands of people, each with a bull or cow on a leash, were walking along the road as if they were enjoying some kind of patronage. They paraded through Hindu areas, hurting the sentiments of many.' After local Hindus raised a hue and cry about the cattle passing through a security cordon along the inter-State border easily, and in violation of the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, the government took steps to check the inflow. But these measures had a minimal effect. During his visit to Dhubri, Chief Minister Sarma said that a new network of cattle smugglers had increased its activities over the last few months and was bringing in cattle in large numbers from West Bengal. He vowed to crack down on this 'network' while asserting the government's commitment to enforcing law and order and defeating all communal forces. Both Hindus and Muslims, however, have started doubting the government's intention. Zaman said that the authorities 'showed a tendency to arrest petty criminals' for the Hanuman temple incident and not those who allegedly violated the cattle transportation law. The district is notorious for cattle smuggling to Bangladesh, where a cow fetches twice the average price of ₹30,000 in Assam. Some residents allege that the smugglers operate in nexus with a section of the district officials and the police, who, according to them, get a cut of up to 10%. Dhubri's Senior Superintendent of Police, Leena Doley, dismissed allegations that the police were refusing to arrest illegal cattle traders. 'We have rounded up a few, and the process is ongoing,' she said. She replaced Navin Singh, who was transferred out of Dhubri a week after the incident at the Hanuman temple. As many as 164 police personnel, including 34 sub-inspectors, were also transferred out of the district. 'The message has gone out that the government will not tolerate disturbance of any kind. The situation is totally under control now,' District Commissioner Dibakar Nath said. Uneasy neighbours Local BJP leaders blamed the Congress for keeping the district on edge. They said that the Congress had fuelled riots after the Babri Masjid demolition and had also let the situation deteriorate in 2012. They also said that it was not a coincidence that the incident at the Hanuman temple had happened a year after the Congress wrested the Dhubri parliamentary seat from the AIUDF. Congress leaders, on the other hand, said that they were not surprised by the BJP's bid to project the AIUDF as a more secular party, as it was the 'B-team' of the saffron brigade. Referring to the Dhubri incident, State Congress president Gaurav Gogoi said that the RSS and its affiliates, including the BJP, were fanning communal sentiments ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections. 'Investigations should be carried out against all those arrested for placing beef and parts of a cow in public places, including religious institutions, but those who put such ideas in the minds of miscreants should be probed too. Such incidents are part of the pre-election strategy of the BJP-RSS to hide their failures,' he said. Chief Minister Sarma retaliated, asking Gogoi to submit proof before accusing Hindus of fomenting trouble. 'If Hindus have to throw meat, they will throw pork, not beef,' he said. At Baluchar, the seeds of distrust between Hindus and Muslims, sown years ago, seem to have sprouted. Paresh Das, a trader, said, 'This was not the first time that go-mangsho (beef) was placed near the Hanuman temple. We know it will not be the last time, either. As the minority community, we have to tolerate this. We just hope that our sentiments are respected.' 'Dhubri has not been an example of communal harmony, but economic compulsions often forced the people to apply the brakes after briefly attacking each other,' said 83-year-old Md Abdul Sattar Mollah, a former employee of a match factory. 'I was drawn into riots when I was young. Thankfully, no one got killed this time. But the cold stares and animosity in the eyes of people now is worse than death.'

New Indian Express

6 hours ago

• New Indian Express

Chart a path out of dark woods

But turf war in this fishing town— where Muslims mainly belong to the Nawayat sect and speak Nawaity, which is close to Persian—was brewing between the RSS and Muslim organisations for control of the municipality. This led to riots in 1993, in which 19 people from both communities were killed. In 1996, Dr Chittaranjan was shot dead in his house. The probe was handed over to the CBI, which could not arrive at any conclusion over the killers. Despite the murder, neither Bhatkal nor Uttara Kannada had witnessed any major communal incident till recent times. The BJP tried to paint with communal colours the death of one Paresh Mesta near Honnavar in 2017, and held massive protests across Karnataka. But the CBI, which probed the death, concluded it was an accidental death, not murder. However, the saffron outfit's electoral gains were massive. It has won all Lok Sabha elections from 1996 till now, except once, from the Uttara Kannada seat (two assembly segments here belong to Belagavi district). However, the Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts were different. The worst years of communal violence in these districts were 1998, 2003 and 2006. In each of these years, at least eight people were hacked to death, many of them in a cycle of retaliations. In 2022, three murders took place in a span of only eight days; in 2025, three deaths happened within 30 days. Why these killings and riots? The reasons are many: vigilantism, moral policing, hate speeches, desecration of religious places, targeting of interfaith relationships, use of religion as a political tool, public and police complicity in terms of informing, inept handling of the incidents by the government of the day, selective law enforcement, withdrawal of cases against the accused, and fake news on social media. Even minor incidents become huge communal flashpoints these days, thanks to viral posts on social media. The incidents are so politicised that it's difficult to control the situation once the fire is lit. Political leaders from both sides of the divide often fan the flames. Has this region reached a point of no return? Maybe not, if the government spares no effort taking tough steps to eradicate communal forces. It also needs to stay neutral, bring community leaders for regular peace meetings, cleanse the police of bias and nexus, and above all, unhesitatingly take action against anyone, including political leaders, involved in stoking communal tensions. But all this is easier said than done. B S Arun | Senior journalist based in Bengaluru (Views are personal)

Time of India

6 hours ago

• Time of India

Diamond heist takes a wild turn as suspect swallows $700K worth of gems in bizarre attempt to evade arrest

Jaythan Gilder, a 32-year-old man, stole $770,000 worth of diamond earrings from a Tiffany & Co. store in Orlando. To evade capture, he swallowed the gems, leading to a two-week wait for their retrieval from his digestive system. Gilder, a repeat offender, faces robbery and grand theft charges in Florida and is wanted in Colorado for a similar 2022 incident. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Gilder has done this before Current situation FAQs A man named Jaythan Gilder, 32, stole diamond earrings worth $770,000 from a Tiffany & Co. store and then tried to escape by swallowing the gems before police could arrest him. He stole the diamond earrings from a store in The Mall at Millenia in Orlando. Gilder pretended to be a representative for an NBA player to gain access to the diamonds, as per being shown the jewelry in a private room, he grabbed two sets of earrings worth $609,500 plus $160,000 and ran away. Hours later, Florida Highway Patrol pulled over Gilder on Interstate 10 near Chipley in a rented Mitsubishi Outlander, as stated in the report by The Smoking arresting him, officers saw Gilder moving something in his mouth and refusing to spit it out. Cops warned him he'd get tased if he didn't open his mouth. He said through clenched teeth, 'I don't have to.' At first, police thought he was swallowing drugs. He claimed the white stuff on his lip was Abreva. A test showed no drugs, according to the his car, cops only found price tags and earring cards from Tiffany's, no diamonds. Cops guessed he had actually swallowed the diamonds and sent him to the hospital. Gilder refused an X-ray and didn't want treatment, as per the report by The Smoking jail, a body scan showed foreign objects in his stomach. He asked, 'Am I going to be charged with what's in my stomach?' He refused laxatives and told jail staff he was Muslim observing Ramadan, so he only ate after sundown. Police waited 2 weeks for him to pass the March 10, he passed two earrings, but they weren't the Tiffany ones, police are still checking where those came from. Later that same day, he passed three Tiffany earrings, and the last one came out on March 12. Tiffany's Master Jeweler cleaned and confirmed the diamonds before giving them back to the store's security team, according to the report by The Smoking 2022, Gilder swallowed earrings again after robbing a jewelry store in Colorado Springs. That time, the store owner shot him in the back during the the hospital, while under guard, he swallowed the earrings so police couldn't take them. Cops searched his poop but never found them, and scans showed nothing either, as per the report The Smoking is now locked up without bail in Florida, facing robbery and grand theft charges. He is also wanted in Colorado for felony charges from the 2022 robbery. His lawyer tried to get him temporary release to attend his mom's funeral, but a Florida judge said lawyer said he has PTSD and depression and needed to grieve. Prosecutors refused, calling him a habitual offender and an escape risk. Back in 2022, he had slipped handcuffs in a hospital and tried to escape through the ceiling, causing damage. His lawyer also claimed he had a 'limited criminal history,' but cops say his record is 20 years long, covering many states, as per the report by The Smoking Gilder, a convicted jewel thief, swallowed the diamonds to hide them from stolen Tiffany & Co. diamonds were worth about $770,000.