People call me ritualist for not having fingerprints – Kaduna-based videographer

Twenty-three-year-old videographer and fashion designer, Hauwa Suleiman, tells AYOOLA OLASUPO about the humiliation, anxiety and stigma she endured for having Adermatoglyphia, a very rare condition that causes a person to have no fingerprints, palm prints, toe prints, or foot soles

When did you become aware that there was something unusual about your fingerprints?

That was when I went to sit the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in 2017. I didn’t actually think it was anything at that point. I just thought their machines were not capturing it well. When I went for my UTME, I was there for the whole day with my dad.

When you go for registration, the machine captures your fingerprints. Then, when you go to sit the exam, you have to do biometrics to match the exact fingerprints that you registered with, so that was where the problem was.

In the beginning, the machine would capture whatever was there, and then when you came to sit the exam, it would not match what was initially captured because either it had changed, or it was no longer there, or whatever was there wasn’t captured properly.

At first, during the registration, it took a whole lot of time before it even got captured. It captured whatever was there eventually. So, I was there for the whole day with my dad. We tried many ideas, and it captured it towards the evening. I was there until about 7 pm.

Then, when I went to sit the exam, I could not thumbprint in, and it was a whole hassle. But at that time in 2017, JAMB was not really strict on the thumbprint issue. My dad spoke to one of the heads there, and they let me write. I can’t remember how the process went because it was a long time ago.

That was my first UTME, and I didn’t get a lot of marks. I think I scored 176. Doing the whole thumbprint almost took me the whole day. It was very demoralising. Sometimes, everything you had read would just leave your head because you would be so anxious.

People were already done with the exam; they had already come out of the hall, and still, I was there without knowing my fate. So, all those things just made me anxious, and when I eventually got in there, I just did what I could and left immediately.

So, I had to sit the UTME again. I went to the headquarters directly to register. We spoke to the man there, and during the registration process, it was not working again, so I told them about the encounter I had the last time. It worked eventually during the registration, but then, when I went to write the exam.

How was the second attempt?

We were there for the whole day, and it just didn’t work, and they said there was nothing they could do about it. So, we went back to the headquarters, and my dad spoke to somebody who was the head there.

He rescheduled me to write with the disabled option, and that was the one that got me admission into the university. I was rescheduled for another week, and then I got to write with people with disabilities.

That was how I was able to write UTME and get into university. I didn’t notice anything earlier than that time. I noticed it during my first registration for UTME.

How frustrated were you when the machines failed to capture your fingerprint?

At that point, I still didn’t know, and I just didn’t think about it much. All I knew was that my fingerprints never worked, and I just blamed it on the fact that they probably had terrible machines. I didn’t really dig deep to know if it was actually from it.

The second time, I was still very young, and all I knew was that my fingerprint wasn’t working. I didn’t even think it was probably a medical condition or anything.

I only knew that it wasn’t working. But I used to react to detergent and water on my hand when I was quite young. Although I was quite young, I just didn’t really think of it at that time.

Do you think it could be the allergy you have to detergents and water that caused the problem?

No, that was not it.

After those experiences, did you go for any medical check-ups to know what was wrong?

Yes, I went for a check-up, not because I didn’t have fingerprints. I went when I was having allergies on my hand when I was quite young. That was even before the UTME. I went to a dermatologist.

What did the dermatologist find out about the allergies?

He just gave me one cream. I was still quite young, so I wouldn’t really know. He gave me one cream to rub on my hand because it always itched when I came into contact with harsh detergents. That was a very long time after that phase. I got through to the university, and then I just left it like that.

So, nothing else happened after I had gained admission into the university. But I tried another UTME too because I wanted to change my course, and it still didn’t work, so I decided to let it go, and I was just living my life. I never came into contact with another biometric situation until I graduated and I wanted to go for the National Youth Service Corps.

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What happened when you eventually encountered another biometric challenge during your NYSC registration or verification?

When I was going for the NYSC, I already knew that my fingerprints were not going to be captured, and they were literally using the same biometric machine. My aunt, who works in NYSC, told me to register at the head office. Apart from that, I had tried registering here in Kaduna, and it didn’t work.

So, the next day, I went to the head office. She said I should get a medical report. That was when I went and checked, and it was Adermatoglyphia, which means an extremely rare genetic condition in which a person is born without fingerprints. It could be an absence or partial prints. I researched it and also got a medical report.

That was when I knew what it was. I took the medical report to the headquarters; I took it to the head of ICT; I can’t really remember vividly. Then I told him my situation, and he said I would still have to thumbprint because there was no other option and there was no provision for people like me. So, he sent me downstairs, of course.

Opposite the headquarters of NYSC in Abuja is that High Court, and in their parking lot, there was somebody there who used to register people for UTME, I think the person was affiliated to the headquarters. They took me there, and I had to sit down there and keep trying.

I was literally there for a whole day. Then I got tired and went back to the headquarters and told them that I had been trying, but it was not working. But they told me to go back and keep trying, because it had to work.

You can see how demoralising that must have been. I was just there trying the thumbprint with my legs and hands. Eventually, it worked at night, only a partial print on my foot worked.

Before I left, I went back to the headquarters and asked the man, “If it doesn’t work during our monthly clearance, what do I do?” He said I would still have to come back to Abuja and re-register. During my monthly clearance, sometimes it would give me trouble, but eventually, it all worked out for the 12 months.

Have there been moments when people misunderstood your condition and treated you differently because of it?

There are plenty of moments like that. At first, when I went to the headquarters in Kaduna, I got a lot of comments. People were not really comfortable with things that they did not understand, things that they felt were impossible.

At first, they would look at you like; this person is trying to boycott something, or trying to cheat because if I had told them that I don’t have fingerprints, they might think somebody could write for me if they made an alternative.

So, the first look was, “You’re trying to cheat, or get away with the system.” They would all come to look at my hands, saying, “Oh, do you farm? Don’t you have blood? You don’t eat well? Oh, you’re ajebo, and you don’t do house chores.” There were a lot of comments.

Somebody even called me a ritualist recently when I posted about it on Facebook. Well, people don’t understand it, and they’re scared of things they don’t understand. That’s just how I see it, especially for the ones that are not really educated. People will be like, “How can you tell me you don’t have fingerprints when I can see your hands? You have fingers, and you’re not disabled?”

I’ve met a couple of people who really understood and had seen people like me before. They sympathised, but there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t help. It has been a very crazy experience for both my parents and me. It has been very traumatising because that’s the only way.

There’s no other way of identification in Nigeria, especially for JAMB. There’s no other way that they can identify you without scanning fingerprints. It was after I posted about it that I realised that there were many with such an issue. The issue is that we cannot apply as being disabled because we are not disabled. We have hands and legs.

I saw somebody reply to my post and said, “Okay, when you want to go and sit UTME, just tap on disabled.” Okay, but I’m not disabled. If I come for the exam and I tap disabled, and later, they see me with both hands and legs, that’s another problem. So, it’s a very crazy situation.

Is this condition curable?

No, it is not. It’s genetic.

Does any other person have the same condition in your family?

No, it’s only me, but my family members, especially my parents, have been supportive since I started encountering the challenge.

At what point did you decide to start publicly sharing your experience on social media?

There was a trend going on Instagram about a documentary, so I just did one. I just put a caption about not having fingerprints, and I got like 164 thousand views and 4,000 likes. I saw that a lot of the comments were like, “Oh my God, me too! Me too!” That was when I realised that we’re actually many with this condition.

After that, the video went viral; I decided to post about it again a week later, talking about the problem. Again, a lot of people were confused, and after the second video, BBC and other media platforms reached out to me. A lot of people on other social media platforms were reposting, and that was when I discovered that there were a lot of us, and I needed to spread the word in case of anything.

I have a lot of people in my comments. Some people have never expressed themselves about this problem. Some people were not able to do it, so I just decided to spread awareness.