Ebun Babalola
30 August 2008
When Saturday Vanguard walked into the Customs Operational Unit's premises, all the officers were friendly.
That was before they knew the reporter's mission. The reporter was directed to the Public Relations Officer's office.
After the introduc-tions, the reporter informed the PRO of her mission. But the PRO's counte-nance changed with the following questions: "Investigation has shown that albinos are narrowly seen in the Nigerian forces.
Is it a deliberate policy or a co-incidence?"
The PRO, after five minutes of meditation, asked again, "Can you please repeat the question?"
The reporter did - FOR the third time. Then he started speaking. "I will not talk into that your recorder on this question. If at all, I'm going to talk to you, I prefer to talk while you write in a paper."
The reporter was amazed. " Now, put your recorder inside your bag and zip up. Have you zipped it up? Zip it up now, don't waste my time now. Now bring out your pen and your book, bring it out, you are wasting my time o."
The reporter did as she was told. But more were to come. The PRO again asked the reporter her mission to the Customs' office. "Now, tell me why you are here and what you have come to do?"
The reporter told him again, and repeated her question, the fourth time.
Then he shouted, "Even now, I don't want to say anything again. Show me your identity card." The reporter was taken aback. She hesitated. "If you don't have, go and tell Vanguard to give you identity card and come back to ask me that question, is that clear? Now you can go, I said, I am through with you, you can go," the Customs image maker went on rampaging.
The story told above did not happen to an albino. But the topic the reporter took to the Customs office was the uniform service's relationship with them. And, if a reporter could be roughly treated in that way because of the topic she was handling, then it goes a long way to illustrate how the Nigerian military treat albinos.
Albinism is reported to be a hereditary condition that causes little or no pigmentation in people's eyes, skin or hair. In Africa, it is estimated to affect as many as one in every 1,000 people.
Albinos, researchers say, struggle with poor eyesight, and in Africa are much more prone to skin cancer and have shorter life expectancy.
Media reports say that albinos have to contend with stigma and discrimination as African societies see them as bearers of bad luck. Often times, albinos are abandoned at birth and are shunned throughout their lives.
In Nigeria, albinos often face discriminations and public scorn. But, like everyone else, they want the best society can offer them. Sadly, though, albinos, due to how society treats them, are filled with fear.
This fear manifests in work places. In fact, some organisations do not employ them, even though they are qualified.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Albino Foundation, Mr. Jake Epelle, told Saturday Vanguard from Abuja that 99. 9 percent of albinos are denied employment in Nigeria, and this is worse at the military and paramilitary forces.
The Custom's hostile approach was, however, an isolated case. Because a visit to other military forces were cordial. Perhaps, the Custom's Public Relation Officer, Mr. Chike Nwobodo, was not comfortable with the topic and thought that the best way to handle it was to curtail the reporter's access to information on albinos' inability to gain employment at the Customs.
Saturday Vanguard asked for some other personalties who could give vivid reasons on the albino issue. In the end, the national Public Relations Officer of the Customs Service Commission, Mr. Olawale Adeniyi, was put on a tele-phone conversation to give the Commission's point of view.
For Adeniyi, there is no discrimination of sex and colour in the Commission restricting any albino to-Jake Epelle be employed.
"Right now, Customs is recruiting but there have not been any albino that has shown up for recruitment that we have turned down his application. If anyone feels that he is qualified, he or she should come around for interview with all the necessary requirements. We do not discriminate against sex or colour." he said.
For Frank Mba, the Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Police Force, Lagos, policing in Africa involves massive exposure to sunshine and, therefore, getting albinos employed based on this might be difficult.
Earlier, the PRO, on phone, had responded to the question by saying that "There is no such thing in the police."
Asked whether to come over to the office, his respond was relatively reluctant. It took the reporter another three weeks to fashion out another strategy to let the policeman speak to Saturday Vanguard.
It took the intervention of a group of journalists who report crime related story to make the man speak.
According to him, "the laid down principles set up to employ anybody has nothing to do with discrimination of persons but if you see that there is no albino in the Police Force due to the investigations you have carried out, it is not a deliberate policy but a co-incidence.
"The fact that there are few albino or you have not seen albinos in the Police Force does not prove that it is a deliberate policy. But if you have not been seeing any albino in the Nigeria police, I would say it is a coincidence.
"There is no deliberate policy or state policy that says albinos cannot be police officers. There are laid down procedures. There are qualifications just like any other profession, the basic criteria that one must meet before you become a police officer.
For instance, such individual must be physically fit, must be of a certain height, whether you are a man or woman. You must have a certain qualification, good eye sight because our job is such that you need very perfect eye sight to be able to see criminals; to be able to pursue them at night; to be able to do stop and search, for you to be carry out proper investigations.
Once you have all these basic criteria for enlisting into the Force, then you can now take a positive step. Remember, we don't conscript people into the Nigerian Police Force. It is a decision, you must take voluntary".
"When you are now qualified, you take a bold and voluntary step by applying. When you apply, we would then subject you to series of test: medical, physical, examination on both written and oral tests.
It is when such individual passes through all these series of tests that such is qualified to be employed into the Police Force where he would be sent to the Police College. But we will not go out of our way to conscript albinos into the Nigerian Police Force. But I must say also that there is no deliberate policy barring albinos from coming into the Police Force," he explained.
Adding, the police image maker said, "It is wrong for anybody to suggest, not to talk of reaching a conclusion that we don't employ albinos in the Police Force. Ours is a job where we would be too glad to have anybody from anywhere.
There are over 500,000 Police officers in Nigeria. It is impossible for me to know whether an albino applied and is not employed. In Lagos police command, we are about 28,000 close to 30,000 officers and men. I don't know everybody except there would be a census to sort albino police officers and men. I have not seen a typical albino."
"If there is any albino out there who is eminently qualified to join the Nigerian Police, who believes in methods and conditions to joining and has a passion for joining into Nigeria Police, he should walk in. We will receive such individual." Mba promised.
"Even at the Nigerian Armed Forces, where there are different races, hardly will you see an albino because there are different principles that would not allow an albino to work in such environment. I don't know if policing is all about skin or physical appearance. We face difficulties in employment and marriage.
Family members of albinos also experience discrimination from their communities." Epelle said.
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