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FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA
FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA
Nigeria seems to have become a remorselessly cheerless place, like an arid land where flowers don’t grow. In the last few years she has been shorn of good news, especially as concerns human development indices emanating from the United Nations agencies. We are prominent but only in the league of the laggards. Among the poor nations, we are notable; on the jobless index, we are running strong. Just raise any social or economic index and Nigeria is preeminent on the negative end of it.
While these may be understandable considering that our polity has been long beset with poor leadership which has left her underdeveloped for a long time, how do we explain her current laurel as the country with the most bleached women in the world, as recently adjudged by the World Health Organisation (WHO)? The desire to make the colour of the skin lighter is a personal decision and has nothing to do with economic or social pressures; it is strictly a self-induced harm.
According to WHO, 77 percent of women in Nigeria use skin-lightening products and this is the world’s highest. This compares with 59 percent in Togo and 27 percent in Senegal. An independent poll conducted in Abuja early in the year by NOI Polls corroborates WHO’s position. Ironically, it was discovered that the practice cuts across all social strata while educational standing did not prove to be an important factor. This suggests that attempt to alter the colouration of one’s skin has deep-rooted psychological and colonial undertones.
Some respondents said they use skin-lighteners because they want “white skin” while yet others said they wished to “look beautiful” and “attractive to the opposite sex”. It was also discovered that many people who bleach believe that light or pale skin depicts beauty and success while dark complexion is considered to be below standard and ordinary.
Sadly, skin bleaching substances like most other things, are hardly regulated in Nigeria. All sorts of tubes, plastic bags of powders, ointments and mixtures can be found in most patent medicines stores and on the sidewalks in markets across the country. Both the imported and locally concocted ones are sold side-by-side by vendors. Some of the most ruinously potent ones are not labelled as to their ingredients.
Skin-bleaching has become a pandemic in Nigeria regardless of the fact that skin-lightening creams have been proven over the years to contain dangerous and toxic substances such as hydroquinone, mercury compounds and topical steroids which are known to cause such debilities as kidney failure, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Long use of these chemicals which steadily erodes the concentration of melanin (dark pigments of the skin) often portends long-term damaging effects on the bleached skin; it makes the skin less responsive to suture during surgery while large dose of the chemicals in the body could affect the unborn child in child-bearing women.
It is quite worrisome that even in this age so many Nigerians are still prisoners of their skin colour. Even after we have been liberated from the shackles of colonialism, many of us are still unable to break the chain of inferiority complex and low self-esteem. Despite the crusading work of people like James Aggrey, Booker T. Washington and even Kwame Nkrumah, many years ago, it is uncanny that some Africans, led by Nigerians, would still consider the white skin better or superior to black.
Let us restate Aggrey’s evocative words on this matter that, “I am proud of my colour, whoever is not proud of his colour is not fit to live.” While we urge government to ban bleaching substances and criminalise their sale, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) must initiate campaign to educate bleachers on the need to shore up their self-esteem, be proud of their exquisite black skin and try being beautiful from the inside.
BLEACHING IS RACIAL SUICIDE! -"YOU DEY BLEACH?" FELA ANIKULAPO-KUTI SANG IN YELLOW FEVER-BLEACH AND DIE-FROM THE NATION NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA
You dey bleach?
• WHO rates Nigerian women as world champions in skin-bleachingNigeria seems to have become a remorselessly cheerless place, like an arid land where flowers don’t grow. In the last few years she has been shorn of good news, especially as concerns human development indices emanating from the United Nations agencies. We are prominent but only in the league of the laggards. Among the poor nations, we are notable; on the jobless index, we are running strong. Just raise any social or economic index and Nigeria is preeminent on the negative end of it.
While these may be understandable considering that our polity has been long beset with poor leadership which has left her underdeveloped for a long time, how do we explain her current laurel as the country with the most bleached women in the world, as recently adjudged by the World Health Organisation (WHO)? The desire to make the colour of the skin lighter is a personal decision and has nothing to do with economic or social pressures; it is strictly a self-induced harm.
According to WHO, 77 percent of women in Nigeria use skin-lightening products and this is the world’s highest. This compares with 59 percent in Togo and 27 percent in Senegal. An independent poll conducted in Abuja early in the year by NOI Polls corroborates WHO’s position. Ironically, it was discovered that the practice cuts across all social strata while educational standing did not prove to be an important factor. This suggests that attempt to alter the colouration of one’s skin has deep-rooted psychological and colonial undertones.
Some respondents said they use skin-lighteners because they want “white skin” while yet others said they wished to “look beautiful” and “attractive to the opposite sex”. It was also discovered that many people who bleach believe that light or pale skin depicts beauty and success while dark complexion is considered to be below standard and ordinary.
Sadly, skin bleaching substances like most other things, are hardly regulated in Nigeria. All sorts of tubes, plastic bags of powders, ointments and mixtures can be found in most patent medicines stores and on the sidewalks in markets across the country. Both the imported and locally concocted ones are sold side-by-side by vendors. Some of the most ruinously potent ones are not labelled as to their ingredients.
Skin-bleaching has become a pandemic in Nigeria regardless of the fact that skin-lightening creams have been proven over the years to contain dangerous and toxic substances such as hydroquinone, mercury compounds and topical steroids which are known to cause such debilities as kidney failure, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Long use of these chemicals which steadily erodes the concentration of melanin (dark pigments of the skin) often portends long-term damaging effects on the bleached skin; it makes the skin less responsive to suture during surgery while large dose of the chemicals in the body could affect the unborn child in child-bearing women.
It is quite worrisome that even in this age so many Nigerians are still prisoners of their skin colour. Even after we have been liberated from the shackles of colonialism, many of us are still unable to break the chain of inferiority complex and low self-esteem. Despite the crusading work of people like James Aggrey, Booker T. Washington and even Kwame Nkrumah, many years ago, it is uncanny that some Africans, led by Nigerians, would still consider the white skin better or superior to black.
Let us restate Aggrey’s evocative words on this matter that, “I am proud of my colour, whoever is not proud of his colour is not fit to live.” While we urge government to ban bleaching substances and criminalise their sale, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) must initiate campaign to educate bleachers on the need to shore up their self-esteem, be proud of their exquisite black skin and try being beautiful from the inside.
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