Mrs Adichie had alleged in a letter to President Joe Biden of the US that INEC Chair, Mahmood Yakubu, may have been compromised by Mr Tinubu, who won the recent Nigeria’s presidential election.
Dele Alake, the special adviser communications to President-elect, Bola Tinubu, says Chimamanda Adichie may face a lawsuit over an allegation she made against the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu.
Ms Adichie, in an open letter to US President, Joe Biden, said “Many believe that the INEC chair has been “compromised”.
“…but there is no evidence of the astronomical U.S.-dollar amounts he is rumoured to have received from the president-elect. The extremely wealthy Tinubu is himself known to be an enthusiastic participant in the art of “compromising”; some Nigerians call him a “drug baron” because, in 1993, he forfeited to the United States government $460,000 of his income that a Chicago court determined to be proceeds from heroin trafficking,” she added.
Mr Alake, in a rejoinder issued on Friday, said the novelist will be lucky to avoid being asked to prove her allegation in court.
“Chimamanda will be lucky if she does not have to prove this weighty allegation in court,” he said.
INEC has not responded to the allegation.
Ms Adiche supported the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, who came third in the presidential election.
Mr Tinubu, the ruling APC candidate, polled a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored a total of 6,984,520 votes and Mr Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes There were 18 candidates in presidential election which held on 25 February.
Why Tinubu won
While trying to prove the credibility of the election, Mr Alake stated that the decisions of Mr Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso to defect from the PDP to LP and New Nigeria Peoples Party respectively helped Mr Tinubu to win the election, a task that would have been almost impossible.
“It is instructive that Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso broke away from the PDP to contest the election on the platforms of the LP and NNPP respectively. Had the PDP contested the election as one with Obi and Kwankwaso in its fold, winning the election would have been an uphill, almost impossible, task for the APC.
“But contesting on three separate platforms against the ruling party as they did, the victory of the APC was logically and empirically inevitable,” he wrote.
Messrs Obi and Kwankwaso dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) just before the primaries.
Meanwhile, Messrs Obi and Atiku are currently challenging the outcome of the presidential election in court.
