President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered that prompt and appropriate disciplinary action be taken against those responsible for a wrongful insertion in his speech delivered on September 8, 2016 at the launch of the “Change Begins with Me’’ campaign.
Many critics have attacked Buhari for the similarity of his speech with that of President Barack Obama’s 2008 inaugural speech and called on him to show remorse. It was observed that the similarities between a paragraph in President Obama’s 2008 Victory Speech and what President Buhari read in paragraph nine of the sixteen-paragraph address while inaugurating the Campaign on Thursday, September 8, 2016 were too close to be passed as coincidence.
But the Presidency described the development as a mistake by an overzealous staff and regretted the occurrence. “There was a mistake by An overzealous staff and we regret that this has happened, Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said in a statement last night.
Shehu said that a Deputy Director in the Presidency had already accepted responsibility for the insertion of the contentious paragraph. “This serious oversight will be investigated thoroughly and appropriate sanction meted.
“The Presidency wishes to state in the clearest possible terms that it regrets this unfortunate incident and will ensure that this does not happen again.
“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.
(Vanguard)
