A Nigerian woman who was born without fingerprints has shared her experience navigating biometric identification systems, such as during Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB) examinations, the National Youth Service Corps programme and banking transactions.
The woman identified as jidds. xo on Instagram recently recounted her ordeal in a video.
She recalled discovering the condition in 2017 while registering for her first JAMB examination.
She said the registration process became difficult after officials couldn’t capture her fingerprints, forcing her to spend hours at the registration centre with her father.
“I was born without fingerprints, and for many years, I thought I was the only person with something like this in Nigeria.
“Then I made a little joke on Instagram, and almost a hundred people reached out to me telling me that they had the same issue,” she said.
Recalling her first JAMB registration, she said, “I stayed there the whole day with my dad. I watched over 200 people register before me. It was—I cried.”
According to her, officials suggested several methods to make her fingerprints readable, including using sand, spirit, methylated spirit, chalk, and watermelon.
“I had to scrub my hand on a stone at a point. And then I got to register,” she said.
She said the difficulty continued when she went to write the examination, as she sometimes could not authenticate her fingerprints to gain access or complete the process.
“Sometimes I would be able to thumbprint in, and I would not be able to thumbprint out,” she said.
The woman said the challenge had affected several aspects of her life, particularly activities requiring biometric verification.
“Living in Nigeria without fingerprints has been—has been terrible, honestly. From NYSC to JAMB to the bank, to any other thing that needs biometrics. I always have anxiety, It has been frustrating,” she said.
During her NYSC programme, she had to use a part of her foot because the ridges on her toes were also too faint.
She also recalled being subjected to misconceptions because of her condition, saying some people had called her a ritualist.
“Some people will tell you that, ‘Oh, you are a ritualist.’ Some people will say, ‘Ah, this one is a ritualist.’ Some people will say, ‘Ah, you carry too many hot things.’”
Jidds questioned why institutions that know about the condition still lack clear provisions for people like her.
“If they have knowledge of this issue, why is it that there’s no provision for people like us?”
Jidds said she initially believed she was the only person in Nigeria experiencing the condition until she made a light-hearted post about it on Instagram.
“I was born without fingerprints, and for many years, I thought I was the only person with something like this in Nigeria.
“Then I made a little joke on Instagram, and almost a hundred people reached out to me telling me that they had the same issue,” she said.
She identified the condition as adermatoglyphia, a rare condition in which a person has absent or greatly reduced fingerprints.
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