By
Chux Ohai, Correspondent, Lagos

align="middle"> Ikebe: Nigerian Women

Tony
Adim recalls the first time he discovered the word ‘Ikebe’ and what it meant to
most Nigerians with amusement. "That was over 20 years ago," he says, with a chuckle,
"I was still in secondary school in the East. I remember that my friend, Chikelu,
and I had gone to take a look at the papers, as we were wont to do in those days
(you know, we used to call ourselves members of ‘free readers association of Nigeria’)
when we saw this funny-looking magazine on the newsstand with the drawing of a
woman’s backside on the logo. Apart from this, the other thing that struck me
were the headlines, some of which read, and I recall clearly: ‘Ten Hot Ways To
Chase A Lagos Chick’ and ‘Papa Ajasco on the Rampage’. My friend and I thought
it was really funny and we laughed. The vendor had looked at us with a smile and
said in pidgin English: ‘Nobody wey read dis IKEBE SUPER wey no go laugh’. And
when we asked him what the word IKEBE meant, he simply pointed at the exaggerated
drawing of a woman’s backside on the ear of the magazine."

Adim confesses he’d laughed the
more at the suggestive title of the magazine. Reading comics or magazine that
concentrated on humour wasn’t strange to him. But a rag-sheet like IKEBE SUPER
that used a part of the female anatomy as a metaphor for sizzling humour without
being lewd had seemed a new experience. "From that first day, I noticed that the
magazine had a special bias for the female backside. I wouldn’t call it pornography.
But it looked as if the publisher had somehow set out to ridicule certain fixed
notions of the female sex," he adds.

"It
is true our men like dating ladies with generous backsides. But I can’t understand
why some of them get carried away when they are with such women. What is so special
about a woman’s backside, anyway? Is it not ordinary flesh?" says Miss Titi Oladimeji,
with a hint of disdain. Perhaps, it is easy to observe the male attitude to this
part of the female anatomy from a typical street scene. Sometimes when men hang
out together, they spend half the time looking out for pretty ladies with attractive
and curvy bodies. When a lady with a really head-turning derriere happens along,
their gaze would fasten on her so hungrily the air would rent with provocative
whistles. Sometimes, too, one lust-sodden man could lose control of himself and
walk up to the lady while others quietly cheered him on.

Oladimeji herself has experienced
such harassment more than once. In one case, a bus conductor, rude and unkempt
as they come, actually went too far by touching her bum. "And I gave him a dirty
slap on his face," she says. "I could have dragged him to a nearby police station
and had him locked up in a cell, but for other people who begged me to pardon
him."

Few
women believe it is plain sexual harassment when the opposite sex appears to be
this much obsessed with the female backside. Others think it is the basis of rapes
and other sexual crimes against the female folk. Yet, most Nigerian men would
rather let it be known that women are the ones who are at fault all the time.
They accuse the women of arousing the devil in them by dressing provocatively.
"Look at the way some of these young women dress these days. When a woman wears
the kind of clothes that leave very little to the imagination, isn’t it enough
to make a man commit sin?" says Pastor Godson David of Living Miracles Church.
No matter how puritanical they might sound, men like Pastor David only represent
an insignificant minority in this matter.

The reason is that the Ikebe syndrome appears to be firmly rooted in the sexual
behaviour of the average Nigerian male. Ask any virile young man whom he prefers
for a sexual partner between a slim lady with a modest backside and another with
a well-formed and fleshy backside. He would most certainly choose the latter.

"Me I no fit marry
woman wey no get better Ikebe o," Mufutau, an auto mechanic in Lagos, told Daily
Independent when he was asked the same question. And then nodding at a tall, thin
girl who happened to be passing by at that moment, he added: "Even if dem dash
me dat lepa wey dey go so with one million naira, I no go marry am. Wetin person
fit enjoy for dat one body?"

The
word Lepa is another lexicon that has found its way into the general pidgin vocabulary
in recent time. Coined from a popular song by the Magic System, an upbeat musical
group from neighbouring Cote D’Ivoire, the word has gained currency in Nigeria
as a nickname for very slim ladies. A typical Lepa is considered to be less attractive
than her fleshy and well-built sister. Most men despise her because her skinny
(sometimes bone-thin) frame does not fulfill their fantasies of a healthy African
female.

Of
course, the image of a well-built and wide-hipped female as the true model of
beauty still subsists in Africa. This image is clearly associated with well-formed
and fleshy backsides, not with the plain and bone-thin frame of a Lepa. Given
this African perspective of physical beauty and sexual attraction, a skinny girl
wouldn’t make an impression on a traditional young male in need of a female partner,
even if she were declared the most beautiful girl on earth. It would be interesting
to learn why the average Nigerian male appears to be besotted with the image of
a fleshy female bum. Beauty, they say, is in the eyes of the beholder. But this
doesn’t seem to be the case here. So, stereotypes or not, what is that thing that
makes a man want to lose control when he sees a woman rolling her fanny innocently.
What is so exciting about it, anyway?