These excellent new dolls are outselling Barbie.

His daughter said she wanted to be white. So this father created a new doll for African girls.

When his daughter said she wanted to be white, Nigerian father Taofick Okoya knew he had to take drastic action.

So he created a new line of African dolls to give his daughter a figure they can more closely identity with– and now, the toys are outselling Barbie in his native Nigeria.

Okoya, 43, designed the Queens of Africa doll line to offer his daughter and other young African girls a contrast to the popular blonde-haired, blue-eyed dolls that saturate the market.

Speaking to  ELLE, Okoya explained that even though they live in Nigeria, the widespread Western influence “might have been responsible for her wishing she was white.”

“Even though we live in Nigeria, there was a lot of Western influence, which might have been responsible for her wishing she was white,” Okoya told ELLE.

“It made me aware that I needed to make her proud and happy being a black African girl, and not limit it to her alone as this was a common trend amongst the younger generation. The Queens of Africa became a platform to achieve this.”

The dolls are modeled off three African tribal communities, resembling the appearance and dress of these women.

They come with traditional outfits and accessories and costs around £4.50 (about AUD$8.70), the Daily Mail reports.

Okoya’s dolls now reportedly comprise 15 per cent of Nigeria’s toy market, selling between 6,000 and 9,000 dolls per month.

They’re also available online and are gaining popularity abroad, particularly in Brazil, the Ivory Coast, Europe and America.

Okoya has been told that he won’t be able to sell the dolls on the shelves of mainline stories in America– but wants to decision overturned, saying: ‘I am looking to prove them wrong.’

Related content: Barbie doesn’t look like Barbie anymore.

While the Queens of Africa dolls still feature teeny waistlines, thin arms and other unrealistic features some parents won’t love, we reckon any move towards diversity in the toy market should be welcomes.

So what we want to know is: when will Queens of Africa hit Australian shelves?