Prof. Atilade Adeeyo, the coordinator of the National Democratic Coalition Renewal Group, on Tuesday denounced the letter that Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie sent to US President Joe Biden regarding the All Progressives Congress candidate Bola Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 presidential election.
Adichie had criticized the US in the letter for congratulating Tinubu, who she claimed won through an illegal process, on the grounds that the election had been marred by violence and irregularities and had also been tainted by the electoral umpire.
But NADECO Renewal, which said Adichie’s outburst betrayed her ethnic bias in a matter of national interest, urged the American president to ignore the letter in its entirety, describing its content as “childish, seditious and illogical.”
In a statement titled, “Ignore Adichie’s childish, seditious, illogical ranting, NADECO Renewal tells Biden,” made available in Ado Ekiti, Adeeyo described Adichie’s message as “illogical reasoning regarding the ensuing political development in Nigeria and ignorance of the electoral umpire’s operations.”
The group said, “With that ill-conceived letter of hers to US President Biden, she has exposed her true colour – that of an ethnically-biased Nigerian hiding under the guise of a writer to pretentiously preach patriotism, but who is capable of unreasonably and ignorantly approaching issues of national interest from a myopic prism of ethnicity.
“We can only advise the ever-busy President of the US to ignore Adichie and her ethnically-influenced and biased letter because it is written out of a shallow understanding of the electoral laws that guide the electoral process.
“We like to engage Adichie on a few of some of her gaffe. This lady of letters, so to say, goofed pathetically when she described the February 25 presidential poll as illegitimate because it is only a competent court of law that has the legal grounds to decide and pronounce the legitimacy or otherwise of the poll.”