By Okelo Madukaife
The open letter from Chimamanda Adichie to President Joe Biden is ill-advised and fraught with self-contradiction .
Nothing in her long, windy story reflects that she took time off to observe the elections?
When she is not relying on one relative here, she is citing one cousin there.
In other words she relied on secondary bias and hearsay to fly a letter addressing serious election concerns to the leader of another nation.
Is she the only one whose family has a close relationship with Peter Obi, or she must abuse the mileage gained in the artistic field for momentary emotional pursuits?
And pray, since she lives in America, Nigeria must be subordinated to that country?
I guess she is not current with the changing global balance of power and is entrapped in the old thoughts that in the unlikely event of America listening to her on the eve of another election, the *President Bola Tinubu Government* will have legitimacy issues.
She just deceived herself, possibly addressing issues as she did in the land conflict between Abba, her hometown and their Ukpo big neighbours.
There is so little any single person can do from the armchair, armed with only a pretty face and pretty prose without a grasp of the Nigerian Electoral b Process, let alone its polity and attendant complications.
There are really no specifics in that letter that relates to issues that can invalidate an election within Nigerian statutes.
So, if it is outside Nigerian statute, what is the big idea? Biden should evoke American values and laws and issue instructions to their ‘colony’ ?
That is far-fetched!
America, whose president is being queried for his country’s congratulations to Nigeria on 2023 elections has more information, more varied perspectives, and in greater balance than Chimamanda’s piece could offer.
They had observers on ground to complement the efforts of their mission in Nigeria.
And to crown it all, this open letter comes at a time when the candidate Chimamanda confesses support for, and the party on whose platform he was voted have already approached the Election Petitions Tribunal on three out of four grounds allowed by law.
Something is not adding up.
But perhaps we can discuss this again on May 30, 2023 so we can distinguish Nigerian Literary ambassadors from, aspiring ‘American Colonial Secretaries ‘.
Madukaife is the Anambra State Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), whose candidate won February 25, 2023 Presidential Election