“Awful Colonial Mentality Is Reflected in Chimamanda Adichie’s Letter; Even the US Struggles To Establish The Credibility Of Its Democratic Process — Keyamo:

Festus Keyamo, spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign council has described Chimamanda Adichie’s letter as a reflection of colonial mentality.

Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie had written an open letter to United States President Joe Biden not to accept the presidential election results that produced Bola Tinubu, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, as the ‘winner’.

The award-winning novelist in the open letter published in The Atlantic described the election as badly flawed.

She said Tinubu’s victory was illegitimate as the process of the February 25 presidential election was not marred by technical faults as claimed by the INEC but a deliberate manipulation by the electoral umpire.

She added that the election was full of discrepancies and irregularities which were all shunned by the INEC.

She asked the US President to uphold his stance on the need for a true democracy, adding that congratulating Tinubu will be endorsing the illegitimate process that produced him as president.

In response to Chimamanda’s request, Nigeria’s labour minister and spokesman for the ruling party’s presidential campaign council, Keyamo, described the letter as “long epistles written in flowery or purple prose by bitter supporters of sore losers posing as ‘concerned citizens’”, in a statement released on his verified Twitter handle on Friday.

He said, “In global diplomacy and international relations, Presidents of countries make decisions and take actions about other countries’ affairs (albeit within the limits of sovereignty of States in International Law) 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,” he said.

He continued, “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.”