You can say you stand with the writer, but sorry, you cannot say you stand with the Caine Prize because the Caine Prize has not stood for anything. They have, instead of shutting this down and standing by their decision (or admitting that they too have doubts and made a mistake) opened the door to more speculation and attacks against the writer they awarded the prize to, especially by saying in response to that malicious article that they have "initiated a process" to "look into" the allegations.

What a weak statement. A whole institution has let one weird journalist put out something as embarrassing as this. First, the Caine Prize knew or should have known this would happen. People were already talking about this. Second if they decided to award the prize anyway then they should stand by their decision. Third they have failed in their duty of care to this writer which they are failing to clearly and unequivocally support. What does this statement mean? You have initiated a process to do what? Take him to the evil forest and make him swear an oath after you already said you believe him? Force him to turn over his computer and keys to his flat and trash can so you can investigate? Do you no longer believe him? Calling something a human centered approach doesn’t make it human centered. You have failed the African literary community in this case by being both slow and weak. Either you stand by what you think or you should not have awarded the prize to the story in the first place. You knew the story was coming, you said you stand by the author and now you want to investigate what exactly? Even if you end up saying you stand by the process you have already thrown doubt into the equation and nothing can fix this. The process is tainted by your capitulation. Either that or you never believed him in the first place and also had doubts about the story. Whatever the case this is a shame.