PRESIDENT BUHARI's PLAGIARISED SPEECH AND THE NIGERIAN HYPOCRISY

Once upon a time in secondary school, I was given an assignment to do and I did that assignment to the best of my knowledge expecting the highest of scores.

Alas, when my assignment was returned, my expected score differed from my received score, the way Paul Pogba 's recent performances differ from the over £89M Manchester United paid for him.

To say I was shocked is to understate the matter. I rushed off to my teacher to ask questions and I was told that 'I didn't use the teacher's exact words'.

Does this sound familiar anybody? If we could all be honest, we would admit that at some point in our educational life in Nigeria, we have lost marks in an exam or a test for choosing to put our answers in our own words rather than use the teacher's exact words.

There is a term for using another person's words verbatim. That term is 'plagiarism'.

Last week, precisely on the 8th of September, President Buhari formally launched the #ChangeBeginsWithMe campaign. That campaign received huge criticisms from Nigerians.

It, however, emerged this week that parts of the President's speech on the launch were stolen (yes, stolen because that's what plagiarism really is) from President Obama's victory speech in 2008.

Since then, some Nigerians have taken to several fora to call out the President and his team for this fraud.

According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to plagiarise simply means to:
to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
to use (another's production) without crediting the source
to commit literary theft
to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

Let me at this point say that there is everything wrong in engaging in plagiarism. Everything. It isn't excusable. Especially if it involves an office as high as the Presidency. One would expect that the President's media team would do due diligence and not cause their boss national and international embarrassment.

However, I can't stomach the hypocrisy of a nation that encourages and indulges in plagiarism without giving it a second thought suddenly crying out about the President's plagiarised speech.

From our schools, to media organisations, and even here on social media, plagiarism is the norm. I have had situations where the posts I put out on Facebook were copied verbatim (no quotes, no share) by others and passed off as their ideas.

It often amused me when I saw such people respond with 'thanks' to compliments on 'a well-written article' that wasn't their idea in the first place. Many copy tweets and repost on Facebook without credit to the handle that tweeted it first.

Media organisations copy themselves every single time. No creativity to the copying sef. One media organisation writes a story, 10 others reduplicate without a simple attribution.

Our schools are the worst. The project works many of us (some may be reading this) turned in to earn a BSc. or other degrees were simply photocopies of works done in years past. Some don't even bother to change the topic. They only manage to change the matriculation number and date. Yet, that work is submitted AND GRADED by teachers. Stolen work people, stolen work.

Our teachers aren't exempt. We know many lecturers who photocopied the textbooks of others and passed them off as their lecture notes. An education system that encourages regurgitation in its rawest form suddenly wants to scream about plagiarism? The hypocrisy!

Our entertainment is no different. From beats, to actual lyrics, to movie plots, we see duplication upon duplication upon duplication. No originality and certainly no creativity.

  Of course, the internet and affordable data have made plagiarism even easier. At the click of a button, we have access to millions of information to just copy, paste and move along. No sweat. No mental tasks.

In saner climes, plagiarism can get you rusticated from school. It can cause you serious shame and damage personally and career wise.

When Melanie Trump plagiarised parts of Michelle Obama's (these people sha like copying the Obamas alot) during the Republican National Convention this year, it took minutes for that to be discovered. President Buhari's literary fraud has taken 1 week.

Even at that, it is not raising 1/millionth of the dust Melanie Trump's plagiarism act did. In fact, only a few people are actually 'carrying it on their heads' because if we, as Nigerians, can dare to be honest for a second, we will realise that we are as guilty as President Buhari when it comes to plagiarism
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What's my point? My point is that it is complete hypocrisy for a country where plagiarism is as normal as the Police asking for roger, Arsenal finishing 2nd in their group and losing to Barcelona or Bayern in the next round of the Champions League, or the Igbo man traveling to his village for Christmas (you can add your own), to turn around and cry foul over President Buhari's plagiarised speech. The truth is that the Nigeria system, encourages, nay, forces plagiarism.

The solution? An overhaul of our education system to encourage originality and thinking outside the box.

Also, we have to elevate our values. If we don't think anything is wrong with copying something off Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other source and reproducing same as our idea, how can we possibly sit somewhere and pass judgement on President Buhari?

An end to plagiarism (and indeed any other vice) begins with all of us.

XoXo

NAWTIProf

Picture credit: www.plagiarismchecker.net