Days after President Muhammadu Buhari
launched the #ChangeBeginsWithMe
campaign; there is allegation that the idea
was stolen.
The campaign was launched on Thursday,
September 8 as a way of promoting the
concept of change but it seems the minister
of information, Lai Mohammed may be
shrouded in an intellectual theft scandal. Premium Times reports that an associate of
one Akin Fadeyi said He met with the
minister of information in December, 2015 to
introduce him to a project, Not in my Country,
which he believed correlated with the current
administration’s change mantra.
“The idea was to appeal to the minister to
get NTA and Radio Nigeria to play ‘Not In My
Country’ as part of their administration’s
campaign against corruption,.”
The associate said Mr Fadeyi submitted the
proposal to Mohammed who asked him to
make several changes but later declined it.
“They submitted the final version of their
proposal to him after ending each episode
with ‘Change Begins with Me’ as he directed.
“He immediately said it was a brilliant idea
because it achieved ‘the power of one
minute.’”
“He just suddenly disappeared since then and
made it very difficult for Mr. Fadeyi to reach
him for updates about the proposal.
“Months later, he started publicity about
‘Change Begins with Me’ launch without
signing any contract with owners.”
The associate claimed the video played at
the launch of Change Begins With Me was
similar to Not in my Country.
“The minister just sort of made a little change
here, a little change there, and ran to town
with the concept.”
The minister however denied the allegation
and said the Change Begins With Me
campaign had been in the pipeline before he
was appointed.
Williams Adeleye who is the spokesperson of
Mohammed said: “We started working on
‘Change Begins with Me’ before the
honourable minister was nominated and
we’ve been working with the agency that
produced the campaign.”
“So let him go to wherever he likes then we’ll
meet and go and sort it out there.”