Famous US-based Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie says she agrees with the position of Labour Party vice presidential candidate in the February 25 election, Datti Baba-Ahmed that swearing in a person who was elected unconstitutionally would amount to ending Nigeria's democracy.
Following the declaration of APC's Bola Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election by Nigeria's electoral body, INEC,
Datti Baba- Ahmed told Channels TV, during an interview that swearing in Tinubu as President would mean an end to democracy in Nigeria.
Baba-Ahmed also insisted that the Supreme Court should rule in favor of the Labour Party in the legal suit challenging the outcome of that election.
Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka viewed Datti Baba Ahmed's statement as fascist.
But, Chimamanda Adichie, who was speaking on Tuesday night during an interview on Arise TV, said Baba-Ahmed's comment is reasonable
Reacting to a question about Professor Wole Soyinka's description of Datti's comments as fascist, the award-winning author expressed her strong disagreement with Soyinka's view and suggested, rather that the description was better suited for Nigeria's electoral body, INEC which many citizens have accused of manipulating the election results and "taking away" the voice of the people.
Adichie also said Datti Baba-Ahmed 's stand on the legal requirement that a presidential candidate must win two-thirds of the states and the FCT is a reasonable point that any reasonable and educated Nigerian can interpret and argue.
Datti Baba-Ahmed.
"Baba-Ahmed, I think he was making a very strongly felt point about the elections. What he was saying which again I thought seemed fairly reasonable is that if our democracy is rooted in our constitution and you then swear in a person who is being elected unconstitutionally then you are ending democracy.
"I think it is quite a reasonable position. Of course, we can argue about what that bit in the constitution means."
"So Mr. Datti Baba-Ahmed is saying that it is two-thirds and the FCT and that is separate and it is a reasonable argument. 'And' is a conjunction.
We use it in that context often to mean the plural.
"We say Aisha and Yemi are coming and we don't say Aisha and Yemi are coming; that is because they are two separate entities; and of course, the court will interpret.
"But I don't think it is unreasonable for educated Nigerians who can read, who know what and means to make their interpretation and to argue it, because the fact that the Labour Party is in court
means they do not believe that this election is constitutional," said Adichie.
About Prof. Soyinka, she said:
"I still do (have a lot of respect for him), I have a lot of love for Prof Wole Soyinka. I admire him, I respect him as a thinker, and a writer and I think everyone should read 'The Man Died' and 'Ake', his memoir is really beautiful.
" But at the same time, I disagree very strongly with him about this particular issue and actually because I respect Prof Wole Soyinka so much, I went back and watched the interview. I had watched it when it aired initially but I went back and watched it because I thought, am I missing something?"
Chimamanda and Soyinka.
"And I didn't see any reason that Mr. Datti Baba-Ahmed's interview would have been termed fascist.
"Fascist is a very strong word.
"I think a charitable way of reading Prof. Soyinka's comments that Prof. Soyinka himself, I think it's fair to say that he is not given to restraint in the language in general, so maybe that way, that word, fascist came from."
"However, I have suggestions for what we could use fascism for.
"We could use fascist for INEC because as it is right now many Nigerians feel deeply cheated by INEC, disenfranchised by INEC and there is authoritarianism which is a basis for fascism at the center of manipulating an election."
"What is fascist? Fascist is all of the violence that happened during the elections.
"Fascist is the way that some people remain silent about that violence.
"Fascist is a government that hasn't come out to address the very tangible and palpable discontent in this country.
"I think that when I said we can use fascist for INEC, what I mean is the fact that so many of us including myself are convinced this was not in any way a technological glitch.
Chimamanda Adichie insisted that both the INEC and Nigeria's president Mohammadu Buhari botched a great opportunity to become heroes for Nigeria and Africa when they conducted the allegedly flawed election.
"I think Prof Mahmood Yakubu had an opportunity for heroism and I think he wasted it spectacularly. He could very easily have become a hero not just to Nigerians but Africa because even Africans are watching.
They were so inspired even before this election - the Obidient Movement.
"I also think that President Buhari missed an opportunity for heroism, maybe his last chance for heroism because I think Nigerians felt before the election that he meant well, that he meant to have credible elections but I don't think many Nigerians think that way now and I wish that he has taken a page from former President Goodluck Jonathan, he is a good man, a moral man," Adichie stated.
However, she expressed her hope that Nigeria's judiciary would serve justice to aggrieved parties in the end.
"I hope they will. I think there's reason to doubt that because the Supreme Court has had rulings that just did not meet and make sense to most people and so there is a reason to worry. But I am hopeful. I am generally hopeful, I am optimistic that they would do the right thing, that people will get justice," Chimamanda said.
Open Letter To Biden.
Chimamanda and President Joe Biden.
Earlier the popular writer, in an open letter
criticized the United States President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for congratulating Nigeria's President-elect Bola Tinubu.
In the letter published in The Atlantic and entitled, ‘Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy’,
Adichie argued that the US response to the recent Nigerian election seemed "compromised' as it is removed from the true situation in Nigeria where many have expressed frustrations at the election outcome.
Chimamanda Adichie said that the election process was clearly "imperiled" by "deliberate manipulation," which was obvious to many and should be to the American intelligence community.
She further warned that it would be difficult to achieve stability in a country filled with frustrated young people under an illegitimate government, adding that the West cannot win the battle for influence in Africa by supporting "undemocratic processes."
Adichie also maintained that the idea of building "a global community for democracy,” which Biden had much talked about cannot thrive when the US, its most powerful member "endorses a president-elect who has emerged from an unlawful process"
Flurry Of Attacks
Adichie's letter to the US President drew a barrage of attacks from mainly loyalists and members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Reacting on Twitter, Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity Tinubu/Shettima Campaign described Adichie's letter as fiction and urged President Joe Biden to disregard it.
“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 wrote.
Biden's Congratulation Does Not Validate Nigeria's Democracy — Festus Keyamo.
Festus Keyamo.
Similarly, Nigeria's Minister of State for Labour and Employment Festus Keyamo came out hard against Chimamanda Adichie, calling her letter, a worthless long epistle written by bitter supporters of sore losers.
In a statement entitled "Nigerian’s Burgeoning (not hollow) Democracy,"
Keyamo said Adichie's request for President Biden not to congratulate Tinubu "reflects a pathetic colonial mentality," adding that Biden's congratulatory message does not validate Nigeria's democracy.
Keyamo also took a swipe at America's
present leadership and democracy, saying the US "is still grappling with the credibility of its internal democratic process that produced its present leadership."
He called Adichie's supporters " rabid", "deluded" and " drowning"
and further described Chimamanda's action as " the tantrums of a Trump reincarnate in Nigeria."
Nigeria's Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, recently visited the United States where he claimed the elections were free and fair.
The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN reports that while in the U.S. Lai Mohammed had engagements with international media outlets, including the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press, and Foreign Policy Magazine.
He also visited Reuters News Agency; The Politico, an international political newspaper, and Zenger News, a channel that publishes its contents on Forbes.
The minister also engaged some international think tanks among which were the United States Institute of Peace, the Hudson Institute, The Atlantic Council, and the Wilson Institute.
Despite Keyamo's assertions, many analysts view Lai Mohammed's US tour as part of efforts by the ruling APC to get US support for the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
Human Rights. Politics and Opinion.
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