President Buhari’s “Change Begins With Me” Speech of 2016 Bears Striking Resemblance with Barack Obama’s Victory Speech of 2008

President Muhammadu Buhari

A columnist with THISDAY Newspapers, Adeola Akinremi has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of Plagiarising U.S President, Barack Obama‘s speech after he won the November 2008 Presidential Election.

President Buhari gave the speech at the launch of a campaign by the Federal Government, tagged “Change Begins With Me”.

The campaign was launched “in a bid to entrench the values of accountability, integrity and inculcate positive attitudinal change in Nigerians”.

Three sentences from president Buhari’s 2016 speech matched word for word with Obama’s 2008 speech. The first and second sentences were interchanged and some words and phrases were replaced.

According to Akinremi:

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.

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 Mohammed, 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.

See President Buhari’s speech below:

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.

See Barack Obama’s speech below:

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.

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.

Read President Buhari’s full speech HERE.

Read Obama’s full speech HERE.