Never has an open letter about Nigeria detonated with such force as the one multiple award-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recently wrote to Joe Biden, President of the United States.
The open letter titled “Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy” and published in the Atlantic, was the writer’s searing reaction to the election of February 25, 2023, which produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner.
Given that Adichie’s galaxy of refulgent books – “Purple Hibiscus”, “Half of a Yellow Sun”, “Americanah”, “Notes on Grief”, among others – has long transfixed a global audience, her weighty words have wrung a wave of reactions from Nigerians at home and elsewhere.
She chided the US government for congratulating Nigeria on elections she described as“unforgivably, unacceptably flawed,” while lashing out at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Washington Post for complicity in the compromised process, and a jaundiced narrative, respectively.
Now, as many as believe that the election of February 25 was marred by material irregularities, there as just as many who believe that the election was credible but for the creaks of a work-in-progress democracy.
Adichie is an Igbo who supported Peter Obi, an Igbo, of the Labour Party who came third in the polls and is now in court to reclaim his mandate. Many have dismissed her letter as the whining of a global figure turned sore loser and ethnic bigot.
Nigeria’s colourful campaigns to promote national unity, and harness a diversity dividend from its over 350 ethnic groups have not masked the fault lines that easily and eagerly come to the fore in an ethnically fragile country. Today, even the Nigerian civil war fought over three decades ago continues to have important consequences in how Nigerians perceive Nigeria.
It is not every day one finds those willing to take on Adichie in the game of letters. Her striking and stylish manner of writing has wowed diverse audiences since she burst into the scene in 2003 with Purple Hibiscus as a twenty-six-year-old. But Yemi Oke, a Nigerian professor of law, has been sufficiently stung by Adichie epistle and egomania to write a response.
An aspect of his letter titled “Re: Chimamanda’s Seditious Open Letter To President Joe Biden: A Case of Extraterritorial Ethnocentric Politicking of a Non-Resident Nigerian-American” stands out as he eulogises those who have stayed back in the country to give Nigeria a helping hand as opposed to people like Adichie who have since left the country.
Oke wrote, “Sadly, Chimamanda’s letter is a reckless affront to our resolve not to be part of the “brain-drain” syndrome against our dear country, Nigeria, like the writer. Some of us are determined to be “brain-gain” to Nigeria. It is in view of this that we felt taken aback that Chimamanda went below expectations to pen-down a seditious letter against the government and people of Nigeria.”
It may be Intellectual or economic snobbery but those who once lived in Nigeria but now live in the diaspora never fail to capture an acute sense of loss and pain when they talk about Nigeria, no matter the occasion. It is not always pronounced, but it is always there – an aching nostalgia at what could have been.
This lamentation which usually rises unbidden always causes those at home to bristle at those who have left and are doing all they can to pull the country down.
The (un)righteous indignation is often led by the government which often just stops short of criminalizing out migration as can be seen in the ludicrous attempt by the House of Representatives to force Nigerian doctors to work in the country for five years after graduation before they can leave.
Nigerians who have never lived in another country but theirs treat the dysfunction in their country with a sense of revulsion but also resignation. Nigeria’s diasporas are better experienced and equipped to deal with it. Because they have lived in other countries and know that things can work, they treat Nigeria’s dysfunction with little revulsion but a lot of revolt. They are more militant and their words and actions show it.
This always leads to friction between those primed by the government to believe that it is doing its best and those who can see through the subterfuge that is governance in Nigeria.
Adichie’s letter had the unsavoury effect of airing Nigeria’s dirty laundry globally, but it did not say anything particularly new. At least, not in the UK where former deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu is awaiting sentencing for organ trafficking.
It has been sixty-two years since Nigeria gained independence, and twenty-four years since military jackboots ceased to stampede Nigeria’s corridors of power. So, why is Africa’s most gifted country still struggling so horribly to get anything right? Not elections; not security; not welfare. Nothing at all.
Adichie’s letter may have dripped with questions which offended the sensibilities of some Nigerians at home and in the diaspora. But the controversial writer only scratched the surface of the hard questions Nigeria needs to ask of itself. There is a lot of work to be done if the country is to heal from the burlesque election of February 25.
Ike Willie-Nwobu writes from Abuja.
