Dele Alake, the Special Adviser Communications to President-elect Bola Tinubu, on Saturday said the acclaimed Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie made “one honest admission” in her recently-published open letter to President Joe Biden of the United States of America (USA).
Bellnewsonline.com reports that in the letter, “Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy”, Adichie confronted the question of why Americans keep congratulating the winner of Nigeria’s election in February.
But in a piece titled, ‘Chimamanda: Nigeria’s Democracy Positively Growing’, Alake said the novelist’s write up was “made up largely of rumours, hearsay, presumptuous conjectures and outright falsehood”.
“Chimamanda at least makes one honest admission in a write up made up largely of rumours, hearsay, presumptuous conjectures and outright falsehood. She supported Mr Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Nigeria’s February 25, 2023, presidential election and hoped he would win “as many polls had predicted,” he said.
He added: “Chimamanda had pinned her hopes on a possible Obi victory partly on predictions of flawed opinion polls some of which were predicated on statistically negligible and thus unreliable sample sizes and others on no discernible empirical basis whatsoever.
“Opinion polls do not win elections. After all, most opinion polls had predicted a Hilary Clinton victory in the 2016 presidential election in America. Donald Trump won and that did not make America’s democracy hollow.”