Every June 13, the world pauses to acknowledge the existence of persons with albinism; their rights, their dignity, their health, and the specific cruelties that a prejudiced society has visited upon them.
This year, the United Nations-designated International Albinism Awareness Day carries the theme “Proudly in my skin: celebrating all skin tones,” a declaration that is as much a rebuke of entrenched bigotry as it is a celebration of human diversity.
In Nigeria, where an estimated two million people live with this condition making the country one of the most affected populations on earth ,the occasion demands more than ceremonial acknowledgment. It demands a frank and urgent reckoning with what those numbers mean.
That figure alone should give every Nigerian pause. Two million of our citizens, some estimates suggest possibly as many as six million, carry the genetic inheritance of albinism: the absence of melanin that leaves them acutely vulnerable to sun damage and skin cancer, that saddles most of them with permanent visual impairment, and that marks them, in the eyes of a society saturated with myth and ignorance, as objects of superstition rather than citizens of equal worth.
Sub-national studies have placed the prevalence rate at approximately 6.39 persons with albinism per 10,000 individuals, with the condition cutting across the Southern states, the Middle Belt, and the Federal Capital Territory. These are not marginal numbers. They represent a significant constituency that the Nigerian state has, for the most part, elected to treat as invisible.
The health dimension alone is a standing indictment of public policy. Because the lack of melanin offers no protection from ultraviolet radiation, persons with albinism face a dramatically heightened risk of skin cancer one of the most preventable cancers when detected early and managed properly.
Sunscreen, protective clothing, and regular dermatological screening are not luxuries; for this population, they are medical necessities. Yet for the majority of Nigeria’s persons with albinism, particularly those in rural communities and low-income urban households, these necessities are financially out of reach. The public health infrastructure that could compensate for individual poverty community skin cancer screening programmes, subsidised protective supplies, dedicated ocular care services is either absent or hopelessly underfunded.
Almost every person living with albinism contends with permanent visual impairment requiring corrective eyewear, yet access to ophthalmological services outside the major cities remains a persistent and largely unaddressed challenge for millions.
Beyond the medical, the social wounds run deep. Myths and superstitions about albinism persist with remarkable tenacity in Nigerian communities, driving discrimination that begins in childhood and follows persons with albinism into adulthood. Children are withdrawn from school by embarrassed or fearful families. Adults are denied employment. In some communities, the superstitions take a murderous turn: body parts of persons with albinism are wrongly believed to carry magical properties, making them targets of ritual violence.
While Nigeria has not experienced the epidemic of killings documented in parts of East and Southern Africa, the underlying belief systems that fuel such atrocities are not absent here. The advocacy organisations working in this space .The Albino Foundation, the Albinism Association of Nigeria have for years sounded the alarm about the psychological toll of social exclusion, the difficulty of navigating a society that treats difference as deformity.
It is against this backdrop that the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, used this year’s observance to call for inclusion, protection of rights, strengthened healthcare access, and a society that treats every individual with fairness and equal opportunity. These are the right words. The question, as always in Nigeria, is whether the right words will translate into right action.
We have stated on this page, in various contexts, that proclamations issued by the powerful carry weight only when institutions are moved to act in their wake. A statement from Aso Rock Villa does not screen a single skin lesion, provide a single pair of corrective lenses, or change the mind of a teacher who excludes a child with albinism from full participation in classroom life.
What is required now is a structured national response. The federal government must work with state health ministries to establish and fund regular medical outreach programmes specifically targeted at persons with albinism , dermatological screening, ocular care, and the distribution of protective supplies as part of the primary healthcare basket, not as charity events mounted by civil society at irregular intervals. The disability rights framework encoded in the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (DAPD) Act 2018 must be actively enforced for persons with albinism, who remain underserved even within the broader disability advocacy space.
The National Orientation Agency and the educational sector must bear responsibility for the long overdue work of dismantling the superstitions that underpin discrimination. Curricula from the primary level must include accurate, accessible information about albinism what it is, what it is not, and what it demands of a society that holds human dignity as a value. Community-level sensitisation campaigns, backed by government funding rather than left entirely to non-governmental organisations operating on lean donor budgets, are no longer optional. Where such campaigns have been mounted, the evidence suggests that direct, sustained engagement with communities produces measurable shifts in attitude over time.
Nigeria cannot credibly speak of inclusion while two million of its citizens navigate daily life without the medical support they need, without protection from an education system riddled with bias, and without assurance that the state sees them and stands behind them. Awareness is the first step, but it has been the only step for far too long. The theme of this year’s observance calls on persons with albinism to stand proudly in their skin. The Nigerian state must ensure that there is something to be proud of a country that has finally decided that the dignity of two million of its people is not a matter for annual speeches, but for sustained and measurable policy.
