Posted by Internationally renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has advised US President Joe Biden to refrain from congratulating Bola Ahmed Tinubu because of the rigged election.
Adichie also made mention of reports of widespread violence, ballot box snatching, voter intimidation, and other irregularities that marred the February 25 election in an effort to benefit the APC, the ruling party, in an open letter to Biden that was published on Thursday.
President Biden undermines America’s proclaimed dedication to democracy by congratulating the election’s outcome.
“Plz don’t give the appearance of legitimacy to an illegal process. Adichie exhorted the president of the United States to uphold her country’s claims.
“Voters compared their cellphone photos with the uploaded photos and saw alterations: numbers crossed out and rewritten; some originally written in black ink had been rewritten in blue; some blunderingly whited-out with Tipp-Ex,” the writer noted.
“The election was not only rigged, but also conducted in such a shabby, shoddy way that it insulted Nigerians’ intelligence. “.
It is ironic, according to Adichie, that numerous screenshots of tampered election results showed votes overwhelmingly shifting from the Labour Party to the APC.
In a letter titled “Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy,” the author claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission had broken a promise to upload election results from polling places in real-time via its result viewing portal.
“Some poll workers claimed they could not upload results because they lacked a password, a claim that voters interpreted as deceit. The unfortunate experience was described by the author as follows: “By the end of the day, it had become clear that something was terribly amiss.
Chimamanda pointed out that the congratulatory statement itself mentioned that Nigerians were frustrated at the “manner in which the process was conducted and the shortcomings of technical elements that were used for the first time in a presidential election cycle.” She cited Ned Price, the spokesperson for the US State Department.
She further urged Biden to refrain from supporting the outcomes of the “undemocratic process” in order to show his lack of concern for the state of Nigeria today. “.
“You mentioned the value of a “global community for democracy” and the necessity to defend “justice and the rule of law. ‘A global community for democracy cannot prosper in the presence of indifference from its most influential member.
Why, she questioned, would the United States, which places a high value on the rule of law, support a president-elect who was chosen through an illegal process?
The Nigerian author further argued that many Nigerians are upset not because their preferred candidate lost the election but rather because “the election they had dared to trust was, in the end, so unacceptably and unforgivably flawed.”. “.
Since the conclusion of the presidential elections, Adichie has written two open letters to President Biden, according to our understanding.
The author, who is based in the US, urged Biden in an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times in March to “stand behind the Nigerian people now and make a firm commitment to support election transparency.”. “.
She cautioned in the op-ed, “You don’t want a wave of Nigerian asylum seekers fleeing the intolerable unhappiness of living under an illegitimate government.
Notably, while many world leaders including the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, have extended their congratulation to Nigeria’s president-elect.
President Biden is yet to send his congratulatory message, though Ned Price, did shortly after his victory.