That case of plagiarism

Amidst all the problems buffeting this country, the last thing we expected was for some officials to compound matters by inserting a plagiarised passage into President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech. It was doubly embarrassing that this item was planted in the President’s speech at the launch of Change Begins With Me campaign, which is aimed at […]

Amidst all the problems buffeting this country, the last thing we expected was for some officials to compound matters by inserting a plagiarised passage into President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech. It was doubly embarrassing that this item was planted in the President’s speech at the launch of Change Begins With Me campaign, which is aimed at instilling discipline in Nigerians.  This passage from US President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory speech was lifted without attribution only days before President Buhari met with Obama in New York City.
To the Presidency’s credit, it readily admitted that a paragraph of the speech was plagiarised. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Garba Shehu said similarities between certain paragraphs in Buhari’s and Obama’s speeches were “too similar to be coincidental.” The presidency tendered an apology and said the matter would be investigated and that the officer responsible would be punished. Shehu blamed the deed on overzealous workers. He said a deputy director in the Presidency had accepted responsibility for the action and the appropriate punishment would be meted out to the official. Not long after that a source in the Presidency told Daily Trust that the officer may be posted out of the Presidency. The Presidency also said it would install plagiarism detection software in its computers to avoid future incidents. 
This plagiarism incident was one that should never have occurred if only the Presidency had in place speech writers of the right ability, qualifications and orientation. Anyone who is assigned the serious task of writing speeches for the president should have the right education that teaches that other people’s works are not to be borrowed without attribution. Then also, there should have been in place a system of vetting draft speeches in order to avoid embarrassments.
The Presidency however acted well in the aftermath by admitting fault and recognising the seriousness of what happened. It is ridiculous to say the least that an officer of the rank of deputy director does not know that plagiarism, while not a crime as such, is a serious offence in literature. Lifting an intellectual material to buttress a point in itself is not an offence but it has to be done correctly, that is by acknowledging the author/owner of the article. Even though it is generally said that this country’s education system has suffered a serious deterioration in quality in recent years, a deputy director cannot be a new graduate and should have been in service for at least two decades. Somehow the wrong person was assigned to such a serious job.
If the Presidency had previously assigned low priority to the president’s public communication, this incident should serve as a jolting wake up call.  It is time for a change in thinking and attitude. The Presidency and indeed other organs of government need to place priority on the quality of staff assigned certain duties. While the recently acquired anti-plagiarism software is a welcome idea, it is no substitute for having people of the highest quality to help with the president’s speeches. This is because even the most sophisticated software may not be able to detect plagiarised material that, for example, was not posted on the internet.
The vetting process should also be strengthened. After a speech is drafted, there should be a layered system of vetting and cross checking, not only for possible plagiarism but for fact checking, accuracy and substance, among other factors. Nothing should be left to chance because any mistake in a presidential speech could have far reaching consequences.
There are still other lessons to learn from this speech. Unlike what obtains in other lands, political leaders here tend to treat their public communication with levity, leaving speech preparation to the last minute, assigning the job to poor hands and almost never sitting down with speech writers to discuss what should be said. We hope this embarrassing incident will engender a complete change in our leaders’ attitude to public communication.