BABFEMI FALAYI – RANDOM NOTES
Since I was born and now I am old, I have never seen an albino with tribal mark, I mean tribal marks that look like algebra – or have you seen one?
This privilege of not having their cheeks turned into mathematics notebooks and the consolatory remark of calling them ‘Europeans’ are part of the few benefit of being an albino in Nigeria.
However, albinos carry a far greater weight of discrimination, people don’t wish to be their best friends and they don’t want them to be friends with themselves, which is why you hardly see two albinos move together as friends, they are wary of being teased.
People are extra careful with them, they don’t want to shake their hands, hug them or sit on their seats, they are afraid there might be transfiguration or ‘transcoloration’. The albino girl-child is not loved; she plays alone at school just because she looks different.
Of course, albinos can vote but can they be voted for? Who wants an albino governor or president?
Truly, apartheid exists in Nigeria, just that our brand of apartheid is not racial, ours is genetic. That is why the famous Dr. King’s speech, I HAVE A DREAM – will forever be timeless – “when men shall be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” That dream is still an aspiration.
Albinos are victims of genetic terrorism; they are the most sought after by ritualists, their fate is worse in some parts of Eastern Africa where they suffer infant annihilation.
But have you wondered how some people are as black as charcoal that you think they probably apply shoe polish on their skin, it is an irony that makes you wonder how God distributed the melanin resources that makes somebody have more than enough and an albino, none.
