By Our Correspondent
Bayo Onanuga, the spokesman for President-elect Bola Tinubu, on Friday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to trash Chimamanda Adichie’s open letter asking the American leader not to congratulate Mr Tinubu as Nigeria’s next president, as doing so could legitimise what she described as an “illegitimate process” that led to his victory.
According to Mr Onanuga, Ms Adichie’s open letter to the U.S. president is based on ethnic sympathy and fiction.
“Congratulating its (election) outcome, President Biden tarnishes America’s self-proclaimed commitment to democracy,” Ms Adichie, a celebrated Nigerian author, said in a letter titled ‘Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy’ published in The Atlantic on Thursday.
Chimamanda Adichie Urges President Biden Not To Congratulate Bola Tinubu As President-Elect
Reacting to Ms Adichie’s letter on Thursday in a tweet, Mr Onanuga urged the U.S. president to “trash” the letter, which he described as “fiction.”
“Dear President Joe Biden, please just trash the open letter by Chimamanda on Nigeria’s election once it gets to your desk,” Mr Onanuga stated.
“She wrote fiction, inspired by the monumental loss of her tribesman Peter Obi,” Onanuga added.
Ms Adichie cautioned the U.S. leader against toeing the path of his UK counterpart, Rishi Sunak, who had rushed to congratulate Mr Tinubu, stressing that “the battle for influence in Africa will not be won by supporting the same undemocratic processes for which China is criticised.”
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