Nigerian-born award-winning writer Chimamanda Adichie has recognized Mr. Peter Obi as the rightful president of Nigeria and slammed the flawed elections that denied him his mandate.
Adichie made this known while delivering the inaugural Africa World Lecture at Princeton University in the United States on Thursday. She said she wrote a letter to US President Joe Biden to share her story of what happened in Nigeria, where the elections were riddled with violence, rigging, and irregularities.
She said she wanted to bear witness to the truth in a world so eager to deny and distort even recent history.
In her letter to President Biden, Adichie highlighted the anomalies in the elections and urged him to use his influence to support democracy and human rights in Nigeria.
She also introduced Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the election, to the audience as the man who won the presidential election but was robbed of his victory by the ruling party.
In her lecture, which focused on her writing career, the motivations behind her works, and the reception they have received around the globe, Adichie also talked about how the church, especially the Catholic Church, influenced her work, especially her first novel, “Purple Hibiscus.”
She chronicled her long-running issues with the church and how she eventually left it after being disillusioned by its doctrines and practices.
She also noted that her family believed she was the reincarnation of her great-grandmother, who was fierce and called a troublemaker in her time. She said this inspired her to be bold and outspoken in her writing and activism.
The author of the award-winning novel “Americanah’ delivered the inaugural lecture at Richardson Auditorium as part of the Africa World Initiative and Program in African Studies at Princeton. The initiative, led by Prof. Chika Okeke-Agulu, aims to project prominent African voices around the world. Abdulrazak Gurnah, Africa’s 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, will deliver next year’s lecture.