Chimamanda Adichie, a well-known Nigerian author, has sent an open letter to President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, on the recently concluded presidential election in Nigeria.
The author stated on her verified Instagram account, “I supported Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, and hoped he would win, as polls predicted, but I was prepared to accept any result, because we had been assured that technology would guard the sanctity of votes. The smouldering disillusionment felt by many Nigerians is not so much because their candidate did not win as because the election, they had dared to trust was, in the end, so unacceptably and unforgivably flawed.”
Read the letter below:
On the morning of February 25, the day of Nigeria’s presidential election, something extraordinary occurred. Many Nigerians went out to vote with a renewed feeling of trust in their hearts. Trust with caution, but trust nonetheless. Nigerians have had little faith in elections since the end of military dictatorship in 1999. Voting in a presidential election meant bracing yourself for the unavoidable outcome: fraud.
Elections would be rigged because elections were always rigged; the question was how badly they would be rigged. Voting felt insignificant at times, as preset “winners” were proclaimed.
The 2022 Electoral Act, which was passed last year, changed everything. It provided legal support for electronic voter registration and electronic transmission of results, as determined by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the commission’s chair, promised Nigerians that votes would be counted in the presence of voters and recorded on a result sheet, and that a photo of the signed sheet would be instantly posted to a secure website. When rumors spread that the commission was not upholding its pledge, Yakubu forcefully denied them. He repeated that the public would be able to access “polling-unit results as soon as they are finalised on election day” in a speech at Chatham House in London (a favorite influence-building hangout of Nigerian politicians).
Nigerians praised him. If results were uploaded immediately after voting, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which has been in office since 2015, would have no opportunity to manipulate them. Nigeria’s democracy would be saved by technology. The outcome would no longer include more votes than voters. Nigerians’ leaders would no longer be chosen for them. Elections would finally capture the people’s actual voice. As a result, trust and hope were formed.
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