Following reports that President Buhari’s speech
at the ‘Change Begins With Me’ campaign launch
was plagiarized from President Obama’s speech,
Buhari has ordered that disciplinary actions be
taken.
Buhari was accused of plagiarism of Obama’s
speech delivered on September 8, 2016 and the
President has ordered that prompt and
appropriate disciplinary action be taken against
officials involved.
The issue was first pointed out by a columnist on
THISDAY newspaper, Adeola Akinremi, who said
that the President lifted Obama’s 2008 victory
speech and passed it off as if the words were his
own.
He wrote: “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 plagiarised 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.”
Responding to the observation in a statement on
Friday, a spokesman for the President, Garba
Shehu, said that a Deputy Director in the
Presidency had accepted responsibility for the
insertion of the contentious paragraph.
The Presidency also said it “regrets this
unfortunate incident and will ensure that this does
not happen again”.
Mr Shehu added that the President, however,
urged Nigerians to look beyond this incident and
focus on the message of change which the
country needed in order to restore the nation’s
cherished value systems.
Following reports that President Buhari’s speech
at the ‘Change Begins With Me’ campaign launch
was plagiarized from President Obama’s speech,
Buhari has ordered that disciplinary actions be
taken.
Buhari was accused of plagiarism of Obama’s
speech delivered on September 8, 2016 and the
President has ordered that prompt and
appropriate disciplinary action be taken against
officials involved.
The issue was first pointed out by a columnist on
THISDAY newspaper, Adeola Akinremi, who said
that the President lifted Obama’s 2008 victory
speech and passed it off as if the words were his
own.
He wrote: “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 plagiarised 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.”
Responding to the observation in a statement on
Friday, a spokesman for the President, Garba
Shehu, said that a Deputy Director in the
Presidency had accepted responsibility for the
insertion of the contentious paragraph.
The Presidency also said it “regrets this
unfortunate incident and will ensure that this does
not happen again”.
Mr Shehu added that the President, however,
urged Nigerians to look beyond this incident and
focus on the message of change which the
country needed in order to restore the nation’s
cherished value systems.
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