Soiled Elections
Read Time:2 Minute, 54 Second
US based Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie pens open letter to US President Joe Biden calling the Nigerian presidential election illegitimate
Best selling US based Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, has slammed the US State Department for congratulating the “President-Elect” Bola Tinubu for “winning” the Nigerian presidential election in an open letter to US President Joe Biden.
The letter was published in the US publication The Atlantic, Thursday.
The February 25 presidential election was described as disastrous national shame and therefore illegitimate in the letter.
Following the passage of the 2022 Electoral Act in Nigeria, which gave legal backing to the vote-counting process, “something remarkable happened on the morning of February 25, the day of the Nigerian presidential election,” Adichie wrote. “Many Nigerians went out to vote holding in their hearts a new sense of trust. Cautious trust, but still trust.”
That trust was breached by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the body responsible for conducting the elections.
“On February 26 social media became flooded with evidence of voting irregularities: “numbers crossed out and rewritten; some originally written in black ink had been rewritten in blue, some blunderingly whited-out with Tipp-Ex. The election had been not only rigged, but done in such a shoddy, shabby manner that it insulted the intelligence of Nigerians.” She stated.
“The ruling party’s candidate, Bola Tinubu, was eventually announced as the president-elect of Nigeria. Rage is brewing, especially among young people. The discontent, the despair, the tension in the air have not been this palpable in years.” She noted.
“The extremely wealthy Tinubu is himself known to be an enthusiastic participant in the art of “compromising”; some Nigerians call him a “drug baron” because, in 1993, he forfeited to the United States government $460,000 of his income that a Chicago court determined to be proceeds from heroin trafficking. Tinubu has strongly denied all charges of corruption.” Adichie pointed out to Biden, due to some Nigerians saying the INEC chairman Mahmood Yusuf was “compromised.”
“It is used to mean “bribed” but also “corrupted,” more generally.” She explained in the letter.
The Nigerian born author admitted she hoped Peter Obi the Labour Party presidential candidate would win but was ready to accept any result.
“I supported Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, and hoped he would win, as polls predicted, but I was prepared to accept any result, because we had been assured that technology would guard the sanctity of votes.” Adiche stated.
Earlier this week the Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed told American policy makers that INEC deliberately stopped uploading results after its systems came under cyber attacks.
Adichie questioned the wisdom of the State Department sending congratulations because she believed that US Intelligence would have submitted an accurate assessment of the conduct of the election which will corroborate her story. If that was not the case she wrote US intel were inept.
“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.”
She implored Biden not to endorse the illegitimate election if America was really interested in developing democracy.
“Congratulating [the election’s] 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.”
Akowe with materials from The Atlantic
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Average Rating