WONDERFUL! SO ALBINOS CAN SURVIVE THIS

BUKOLA ADEBAYO narrates how more albinos are realising their dreams and making waves despite the discrimination and injustice they suffer in Nigeria

Onome Okagbare-Majaro never bothered about the ‘fairness’ of her complexion until her classmates drew her attention to the fact that her skin colour was ‘odd’ compared to that of the other 23 pupils  in her class.

Twenty-six-year-old Okagbare-Majaro, who smiles while relating the incident, tells our correspondent that going to school thereafter became a tug of war because she now realised that she was “different”.

Then she began to experience humiliation, which didn’t get any better as she grew older. According to her, friends and foes used her complexion as a ‘weapon’ to attack her anytime she had a disagreement with them.

“Many pupils and some in our neighbourhood sang,  ‘Oyinbo Pepper/“Chukwu Chukwu Pepper’,  while  clapping their hands at me, anytime we got into fights.  I thought it was because I was very fair until I noticed that I was the fairest person in the class. I began to keep to myself. I was scared to say anything because I knew I would be called these derogatory names” she recalls.

 But a particular encounter with a guy rings too loud for Majaro-Okagbare, a graduate of Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, Akoka.

She says, “In the university, a guy asked me out and I said no. He was shocked and said to me, “I don’t blame you. Now you have the gut to turn me down when I am doing you a favour. Who will even date you (an albino) not to talk of love you?” Those words hit me where it hurt most. But I was already strong and confident enough to know that my complexion should make me settle for less.”

For most albinos, growing up in Nigeria and most parts of Africa is not a walk in the park. Onome,  a co-founder of the Onome Akinolu-Majaro Foundation, an organisation that seeks to change public perception of albinos in the country, says that she has come this far unscathed because she had the unwavering support of her mother.