BY: News Peddlers
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| Festus Keyamo and Chimamanda Adichie |
Festus Keyamo says Chimamanda Adichie's open letter requesting that the US President withhold his congratulatory message from Nigeria's president-elect Bola Tinubu reeked of a "pathetic colonial mentality" and election denialism akin to Donald Trump's, who contested Joe Biden's election victory in 2021.
Mr Keyamo, Mr Tinubu's campaign spokesperson, chastised the celebrated writer for seeking validation for Nigeria's democracy in the form of a "mere congratulatory message to our President-elect," especially from a leader whose election victory was also deemed fraudulent by Mr Trump.
“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,” Mr Keyamo wrote on his Twitter account on Friday. “It reflects a pathetic colonial mentality.”
Mr Keyamo said it was ironic “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.”
The APC supporter predicted that Ms Adichie's letter would be tossed in the trash can once Mr Biden realised it echoed Mr Trump's tantrums.
"I'm sure he'll throw the letter in the trash, concluding that it's nothing more than the tantrums of a Trump reincarnate in Nigeria - those who refuse to accept obvious defeat!" Yes, the United States has writers like that among them as well!"
Mr Keyamo's bluster, however, failed to address the cogent arguments raised in Ms Adichie's letter, in which she pointed out discrepancies between the result sheets photographed by voters and those belatedly uploaded on the electoral commission's portal. He only stated that the matter, which he described as "empirical fallacies," was in court without further explanation.
Mr Tinubu has been declared the winner of the presidential polls by Mahmood Yakubu, chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for more than a month, but the White House has yet to congratulate him, as is customary when any nation deemed an ally of the United States elects a new president.
Rivals of the ruling party have claimed that Mr Biden's silence indicates his intention to avoid recognising Mr Tinubu as the legitimate winner of a flawed election marred by "irregularities and violence," as described by Britain's Chatham House think-tank.
(Peoples Gazette)