U.S President Biden to reply Chimamanda over Nigeria’s ‘flawed elections’

United States President, Joe Biden is set to respond to the open letter addressed to him by Nigerian multiple-award winning author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, last Friday over the just-concluded 2023 General Elections in the country.

Adichie had asked the U.S President, Biden not to recognize the Nigerian president-elect, Bola Tinubu by way of any congratulatory message, as, according to her, the election through which the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate emerged as winner was ‘an unlawful process.’

According to Oracle Today newspaper findings, Sunday, it has emerged that the U.S leader will now respond to the letter, but after the Easter holidays, its sources confirmed.

Feelers from the camp of the Peter Obi/Datti Yusuf Campaign Organisation of the Labour Party (LP) confirm that the American leader will officially respond to the letter after the Easter celebrations.

A chieftain of the LP in Edo State, Benjamin Mayor posting via his Twitter handle (@BMEEDO2024), Sunday wrote: “Breaking.  US government to officially respond to chief @ChimamandaReal letter after Easter break. @fkeyamo @realFFK @officialABAT brace yourself for this breakfast. US is dedicated to the sustainability of democracy in Nigeria & will do anything to cooperate with judicial system.”

The position is also shared by many other stakeholders of the LP and supporters of its candidates, who are known as Obidients.

Chimamanda’s open letter to Biden since its publication, last Thursday, in The Atlantic, has generated a barrage of verbal assaults on the author from the camp of the Bola Tinubu/Ibrahim Shettima Campaign Organisation, as well as, the ruling APC, who accused her of, among other things, ‘colonial mentality,’ ethnic favouritism, fictionalization, ’Igbocentric perception of reality, to mention but a few.

In the said open letter to Biden, Chimamanda said it was shocking that the US States Department had earlier congratulated Tinubu by describing the election as a ‘competitive election’ that ‘represents a new period for Nigerian politics and democracy.’

“American intelligence surely cannot be so inept. A little homework and they would know what is manifestly obvious to me and so many others: The process was imperiled not by technical shortcomings but by deliberate manipulation.

“I hope, President Biden, that you do not personally share this cordial condescension. You have spoken of the importance of a ‘global community for democracy,’ and the need to stand up for ‘justice and the rule of law.’ A global community for democracy cannot thrive in the face of apathy from its most powerful member.

“Why would the United States, which prioritizes the rule of law, endorse a president-elect who has emerged from an unlawful process?

“This Nigerian election was supposed to be different, and the U.S. response cannot—must not—be business as usual.

“Congratulating its outcome, President Biden tarnishes America’s self-proclaimed commitment to democracy. Please do not give the sheen of legitimacy to an illegitimate process. The United States should be what it says it is,” Chimamanda wrote in the letter.

According to her, ‘the process of the presidential election was not marred by technical faults but deliberately manipulated,’ adding further that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu ‘failed to keep his word on the uploading of election results from polling results and left the door open to manipulation.’

Since its publication, spokespersons of the ruling party and its candidate, including the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo, APC campaign organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode; head of the media team, Mr Bayo Onanuga, as well as, the Special Adviser on Communications to Tinubu, Mr Dele Alake, have all taken turns to lash Chimamanda.

Mr Onanuga, reacting to the letter, Friday, urged U.S President Biden to disregard Chimamanda, as he wen further to label the write-up as ‘a work of inspired by the monumental loss of her tribesman Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP.’

“Dear President Joe Biden, please just trash the open letter by Chimamanda on Nigeria’s election once it gets to your desk. She wrote fiction, inspired by the monumental loss of her tribesman Peter Obi,” Onanuga said.

Another spokesperson, Keyamo called Chimamanda letter to Biden as of ‘worthless,’ adding that it ‘reflects a pathetic colonial mentality.’

“Based on reports from official and diplomatic sources likely to have been conveyed through well-established channels of communications.

“Long epistles written in flowery or purple prose by bitter supporters of sore losers, posing as ‘concerned citizens’ (but in reality actuated by ethnic politics) do not fall within these official or diplomatic sources.

“It is befuddling that someone often celebrated for using a God-given talent to promote our African values, will so tragically degrade that same ethos by penning a letter that is so petty, so grovelling in its tone in urging a single foreign power to withhold a mere congratulatory message to our president-elect as if that is what actually validates our own democratic identity.

“It reflects a pathetic colonial mentality. It is even more ironic to realise that the same foreign power to which the obsequious appeal is directed is still grappling with the credibility of its own internal democratic process that produced its present leadership.

“More tragic is that some rabid supporters here are falling over themselves in deluded ecstasy for such a worthless letter that may not even be considered worthy enough, in a diplomatic sense, for the attention of even a stenographer to an Under Secretary in the US.

“Such only paints the picture of a band of drowning supporters clutching at any straw to stay afloat.

“As for the empirical fallacies contained in the letter, I will not bother myself here with a lengthy response as enough has been said in the last few weeks in respect of those specific issues and all the issues are before our justices awaiting adjudication.

“But I have bad news for them: the stenographer will probably toss the letter into a trash bin with the conclusion that it is no more than the tantrums of a Trump reincarnate in Nigeria – those who refuse to accept obvious defeat! Yes, the US has the likes of that writer in their midst too!” Kayamo wrote in is reply, Friday.

For another spokesperson, Mr Alake, the aletter’s author, Chimamanda is ‘an unrepentant Igbo jingoist.’

“The noted and internationally acclaimed Nigerian novelist and essayist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, deserves a great deal of pity and sympathy for her so utterly biased piece titled ‘Nigeria’s hollow democracy’ published in the latest edition of ‘The Atlantic’ magazine. It is a piece that does little credit to the image and reputation of a leading Nigerian thinker who ought to be a voice of truth and reason in a time when passions run high and truth is almost indistinguishable from falsehood, in a situation in which many people are heavily emotionally invested in an election which, unfortunately, has not gone the way they expected.

“But that is the often difficult to anticipate way of elections in liberal democracies at varying levels of development. Chimamanda’s piece is a sad reminder that the possession of brilliance and high intellect by an individual provides no immunity against prejudice, bias and bigotry albeit disguised in the deceptive garb of elevated and high minded discourse.

“The writer can of course afford the luxury of pronouncing Nigeria’s democracy ‘hollow’ from the distance of her foreign abode all because her favoured candidate, Peter Obi, fell short in the election. “She avers that Nigerians went out to vote on the morning of February 25 with high hopes mainly because of the promise by the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload results of the exercise online from polling units in real time to enhance transparency. The INEC has admitted that its system suffered unanticipated glitches on that day which made it impossible for it to upload the polling units results of the presidential elections on its portal immediately as promised but it began to do so once the technical hitches had been resolved.

“It is unfortunate that an intellectual of Chimamanda’s stature would rely on rumours and hearsay to pronounce authoritatively on an issue as important as the 2023,elections in her country. She quotes “cousins” and “relatives” in Lagos to back up grievous allegations of violence and massive vote rigging in the election. For crying out loud, there are over 176,000 polling units across Nigeria. From what percentage of these polling units did she get her reports and how credible were these sources? In Lagos State, there are approximately 13,500 polling units. The exaggerated reports of violence and malpractices in the state did not occur in up to 1% of these polling units in one or two local government areas. How reliable and accurate then is the information which the writer feeds her readers?

“Chimamanda betrays her ignorance of Nigerian politics and unwittingly misled her readers when she wrote that “Nigerian democracy had long been a two-party structure -power alternating between the APC and the PDP – until this year, when the Labour Party, led by Peter Obi, became a third force. Obi was different; he seemed honest and accessible, and his vision of anti-corruption and self-sufficiency gave rise to a movement of supporters who called themselves “Obi-dients”.

“The point is that she is Igbo like Peter Obi and wanted him to win for purely primordial reasons. Many allude to her novel on the Nigerian civil war, ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, as depicting her essentially ’Igbocentric’ perception of reality. This is understandable. After all, she is human,” Alake wrote, Friday in response.

Also reacting, Chief Fani-Kayode berated Chimamanda, describing her as an ‘over-rated and Igbocentric new age diva.’

“Neither do we need to respond to her self-serving, self-seeking, jaundiced, subjective, partial, primitive, tribal observations and implausible ethno-religious sentiments.

“If anyone needs to know that lawlessness has consequences it is her candidate Peter and not the Nigerian people.

“And if anything is hollow it is her well-manicured diva head and not our democracy.

“She is not in this league and she would do well to stick to writing fairy tales,” he said.

According to him, “Running to foreign leaders to report your compatriots does not sit well with me no matter what your Uncle Tom credentials may be.

“If you do not have respect for your own people and nation and if you have to go cap in hand to foreigners for validation then you are not worthy of being called a human being let alone a Nigerian.

“Africa has come of age. We do not need to get a congratulatory note from any Western nation before we sleep well at night.

“This is not some Hollywood film script or fantasy fairy tale,” the Fani-Kayode, a one-time Minister of Aviation.