{"id":249289,"date":"2016-09-18T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T06:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=249289"},"modified":"2016-09-18T06:00:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T06:00:42","slug":"overzealous-aide-plagiarised-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/09\/overzealous-aide-plagiarised-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Overzealous’ aide plagiarised Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed an “overzealous” staff member for plagiarising parts of a speech by Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
Several passages of a speech Mr Buhari made on 8 September overlapped with President Obama’s address after winning election in 2008.<\/p>\n
His office admitted the sentences were “too close to be passed as coincidence”.<\/p>\n
The two men are due to meet at the UN General Assembly next week.<\/p>\n
“There was a mistake by an overzealous staff and we regret that this has happened,” Mr Buhari’s spokesman Garba Shehu wrote on Twitter, saying those responsible would be punished.<\/p>\n
“President Buhari urges Nigerians to look beyond this incident and focus on the message of change which the country needs in order to restore our cherished value systems.”<\/p>\n
One of the offending passages<\/strong><\/p>\n Buhari:<\/strong> “We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long.”<\/p>\n Obama:<\/strong> “Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.”<\/p>\n Mr Buhari used the copied extracts in launching a campaign called “Change Begins With Me”, part of a bid to tackle corruption in Nigeria.<\/p>\n The irony was not lost to some online, who mocked Mr Buhari.<\/p>\n