YES! We are all comfortable with the norm and any deviation from the norm is perceived as abnormal, but what happens when this norm is broken by nature? Then, we become astonished and start looking for answers that even those in the

position to provide us with satisfactory ones are too limited and could only speculate. The birth of British Nigerian Nmachi Ihegboro on Sunday, 25th July, 2010 at the Queen Mary's Hospital, is giving the genetic World a run for their knowledge.

Although, her parents are black, she is white with curly blond hair and blue eyes. Nmachi's parents Angela and Benjamin relocated to south east of London from Nigeria five years ago and have  two other children that are of the same colour as they are. 44 years old customer service adviser, Benjamin, was so shocked when he saw his daughter for the first time that he joked “is she mine?” but later stated “of course she is mine”  Benjamin also said that: 

"My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn't been, the baby still wouldn't look like that”.  Although, doctors at Queen Mary's have ruled out albinism because she doesn't look like the typical albino ( pink eyes and super sensitive skin), other experts are yet to rule it out and are calling for more tests to be carried out on both Nmachi and her parents.

When asked for an explanation on how this could have happened, Britain’s Leading Expert on Genetics, Professor Bryan Sykes, Head of Human Genetics at Oxford University, who called the birth “extraordinary"  gave two reasons.

According to the professor, although this case is unusual, it is not unheard of. Skin and eye colours are determined by melanin and the amount or type of melanin is controlled by about a dozen different genes. He insisted that blue eyes and blond hair must be the result of a trace of white ancestry from each of her parents' genes.

This explanation was rebuffed by the Ihegboros who claimed they don't know of any white ancestry. His other theory is mutation; “some unknown mutation was the most likely explanation”. He submitted: "The rules of genetics are complex and we still don't understand what happens in many cases." Nmachi is extraordinary and even the professor acknowledged that “the hair is extremely unusual. Even many blonde children don't have blonde hair like this at birth."

Although, she is the latest sensation throwing the genetic world in disarray, she is not the first child born to parents of different colour. In 1955, Sandra Laing was born black to white Afrikaner parents in the then apartheid South Africa. A blood test confirmed her white father as her true father and the similarity between her and her white brother, Adriaan, sealed the case.

However her skin colour torn her family apart.  In April 2005, mixed race couple, Kylie and Partner, Remi Horder whose mothers are white and fathers are black, gave birth to twin girls born a minute apart one was mixed race and the other was blonde and white. According to the Multiple Births Foundation, one child must have inherited the black genes from both sides of the family, whilst the other inherited the white ones

Another case was reported in UK in  February 2007, when Nkemakonam, 34 and her husband, Ethelbert, a psychiatric nurse originally from Nigeria, had a white green eyed blonde baby boy and just like Nmachi, he has two siblings who are dark skinned like their parent.  

Well, Genetic experts could call it a rare form of albino, mutation or the result of the child inheriting the white or black genes of their parents they could even increase the odds to a trillion to one but for me I call it God's subtle way of fulfilling the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 3:19: For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.