All through my primary and secondary school stages, I was severely bullied because of my fair complexion. No doubt, my skin was not in its right sense at all due to how I always work under the hot sun in our farm which toned my skin to reddish.
I had so many nicknames, including "Albino," which taunted my life. It became worse during my secondary school days when the Government transferred a psychiatric person of the same colour as mine, as the principal... I was being referred as "nwa principal," which means the principal's son.
Each time I'm called that, my countenance changes, wanting to fight, but how do I fight a whole class?
My skin colour became my insecurity, I stayed away from people I knew would make me feel bad, I found it difficult to join students in the assembly ground because anytime the principal comes to the assembly ground, the manner in which he talks always throw everyone into laughter, and half of this laughter falls on my head at the end.
When I got admission into secondary school, I looked odd in my colour as well because of school stress.
One special afternoon in school, I and my friend Theophilus, with his girlfriend Ogechi, went to get some bites. We bought biscuit and Coca-Cola and decided to relax on the veranda of a building close by.
They sat down before me, and as I was about to sit, Theophilus exclaimed, "Wow!"
"What's wow?" I asked him looking surprised.
He brought his hand and held my leg, pulled up my trouser a little bit to reveal my leg, and said, "your colour looks so good."
I stared at him , I looked at my leg also and for sure, I noticed that the colour of my leg was totally different from that of my face and hands, which were the parts that are always exposed to the sun.
"I wish I had that kind of skin," Ogechi added to what we were saying, and we laughed over it.
Immediately I got home that day, I went to a neighbour's house to ask for her big mirror
"What happened? You suddenly want to make use of a mirror?" she asked with surprise on her face.
Because I have access to the house, I left her at the door, went inside, carried that mirror, and left for my room. She was just there, dumbfounded.
I got inside my room, took off my clothes, stood in front of the mirror, and I noticed that my face and hands were looking darkish red while the other body parts were looking like those of a Canadian citizen
Omo! Since that day, my insecurity reduced by 30%, leaving 70% for me to battle with.
On one of the Sundays while in church, we were on duty as ushers, carrying chairs from one block to another. When we finished carrying, our clothes were stained, and we needed to use water to dust them off.
So we (three guys and a light-skinned lady) walked down to the tap. When we got there, we folded the helm of our trousers to avoid being soaked with water
Then I heard her, the female among us called my name "Kingsley!"
I got up looking surprised and asked, "What?"
"You're fairer than me, ooo!" She said this, with her eyes gazed on my exposed leg.
"Mtchwww! I thought it was something serious. But I can't be fairer than you, it seems you're not properly seeing how glittering your skin is," I replied and bent down to continue washing my hands.
Before I knew it, she shifted her leg to gum mine, and said, pointing at our legs for the other two guys to pronounce who is fairer,
Evans and Maro(the two guys), in their happy mood, looked at how our legs said I was lighter in complexion.
Guys, since that day, the complexion insecurity left me totally.
Whenever I feel like I'm being bullied on my skin, I would just reflect on those complement by my friends, and boom, I feel super.
Thanks for reading.