President Muhammadu Buhari made a terrible
mistake last Thursday. He plagiarized President
Barack Obama’s speech to launch “change begins
with me.”
So you didn’t notice that our president lifted from
Obama’s 2008 victory speech and passed it off as
if the words were his own? The argument will rage, but the moral problem of
plagiarism on a day Mr. President launched a
campaign to demand honesty and integrity from
the people is what we should concern ourselves
with.
I’m not a wailing wailer and I don’t like the
downfall of any man but I also don’t like to be
deceived.
The very last thing you should do when you’re
launching a campaign like this is to be dishonest
with the people.
As Buhari talked down on Nigerians during the
launch of the campaign spearheaded by no other
person, other than the Minister of Information,
Alhaji Lai Muhammed, known for his trash-talk,
particularly for the opposition, I started following
the speech line-by-line.
I was alarmed to make the discovery. It was a
scandal that escaped the attention of our
newspapers. It is one of two things: either people
don’t pay particular attention to Buhari’s words or
we are a nation of anything goes.
Only in July, Melania Trump, the wife of the
Republican White House hopeful, Donald Trump,
was caught in the web of plagiarism after she
spoke at the Republican National Convention. She
plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech. It was a big
headline on television screen and national
newspapers. Indeed it was a “global” headline.
Yes, a prime part of Buhari’s speech to the nation
last Thursday to launch a campaign encouraging
new culture of transparency, attitudinal change
and hard work among Nigerians was plagiarized
from America’s President Barack Obama’s 2008
victory speech.
Buhari’s speech during the launch of the “change
begins with me”, a new national orientation
campaign, contained largely the same sentiment
and arrangement of words that President Obama
used in his 2008 victory speech after he was
elected the first American black president.
The president lifted a whole paragraph from
Obama’s speech and passed it off as his own
when he said: “We must resist the temptation to
fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and
immaturity that have poisoned our country for so
long. Let us summon a new spirit of responsibility,
spirit of service, of patriotism and sacrifice, Let us
all resolve to pitch in and work hard and look
after, not only ourselves but one another, What
the current problem has taught us is that we
cannot have a thriving army of rent seekers and
vested interests, while the majority suffers.”
President Obama used the precise words at a
rally in Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, United
States, after winning the race for the White House
in November 2008.
Eight years ago, Obama said: “In this country, we
rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s
resist the temptation to fall back on the same
partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that
has poisoned our politics for so long.
“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of
responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch
in and work harder and look after not only
ourselves but each other.
“Let us remember that, if this financial crisis
taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a
thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.”
It is immoral to plagiarize other people’s work,
but even worse to use dishonesty to launch a
campaign about honesty.
When you use another person’s work without
acknowledgement, you have plagiarized. You
simply pretend as if it is your own. It is unethical.
It makes a mess of the campaign from the start.
That is what Buhari has done, nobody will believe
in the ‘change begins with me’ campaign, because
it was built on lies.
Now, this is what I think must have happened, an
incompetent speech writer handed the speech to
Buhari with no fact checking method by the
president’s men that should have saved the
president from this embarrassment.
I know this that with the vast opportunity
provided by the internet, it’s so tempting to
plagiarize, but the same internet provides
opportunity to discover plagiarists.
It’s particularly troubling that the president has
no inspiring words of his own other than to steal
from someone.
And this, it is pathetic that this “change”
conversation is taking new dimension from what
we expected.
In the midst of its failure, the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC) is asking Nigerians to
change their ways, blaming everything why the
country is not working on Nigerians’ attitudes.
The blame game is moving away from Goodluck
Jonathan years, the only defense for failure that
APC has so far used.
Interestingly, the world is watching Buhari and the
story of his plagiarism may have crossed the
Atlantic without him knowing. Americans don’t
joke with such issue. They name and shame
plagiarists.
Next week, when Buhari take his turn to address
the 71st regular session of the United Nations
General Assembly in New York, the Americans will
scrutinize his words and check his facts.
Before that time, it is my submission that Buhari
needs to apologize to Nigerians for plagiarizing on
a day he launched “change begins with me.” Will
Buhari apologize?
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Thief