Abayomi G. Omotayo
It is no news that the newly sworn in
Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo ‘borrowed’ a few words from Presidents
Clinton and Obama while giving his speech during inauguration. What is
surprising to me is the furore that greeted the speech. The irony stares us
starkly in the face when one considers the fact that Africa is home to rich and
inspiring proverbs meant among other things, to teach us how to act and react
in situations. It is said that ‘esin iwaju ni teyin n wo sare’
meaning the horse at the back looks to the horse in front to guide its galloping
steps. Nigeria is referred to as the giant of Africa, which means President
Buhari is also the number one President in Africa. A while ago, President
Buhari decided to ‘borrow’ a few lines from President Obama during the launch
of the ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign. Should it therefore be surprising that
President Nana Akufo-Addo towed the same line? He simply looked up to the proverbial
horse in front of him.
The Europeans and Americans indulge
in too many trivialities that they make a big issue out of borrowing and
sharing, they need to be reminded that there is love in sharing. It should
therefore be the joy and pleasure of Clinton and Obama that the elders in
Africa find their speeches worthy of borrowing. It is the wisdom of the elders
in bold and bright display in these two instances. It is foolishness to take a
longer route when there is a well paved, better and shorter route to the same
destination. Imagine the time and efforts saved from borrowing these speeches
than daring to be original, thoughtful and producing riveting speeches just
like that of the late sage Obafemi Awolowo and Kwame Nkrumah. The
socio-economic challenges in Africa are enormous such that there is no time to
waste in writing speeches when we can leverage on already written speeches. In
this Information Technology age, there is no excuse for time wasting therefore
all these outcries against plagiarized speeches by our presidents are irrelevant.
I blame Bill Gates. He is the reason
why our presidents are being ridiculed. He was not satisfied with Windows
operating system that he had to invent the Microsoft Word. It is easier to
‘copy and paste’ than to write and edit so why take the hard route of
originality? Even though it is professional and honorable but can we question
the wisdom of the elders when they decide to copy and paste? Do that at your
own peril. Is it not wisdom to rest the brain for weightier matters of
governance than to start tasking it because of an ordinary speech? Google
should also share in the blame too. For Bill Gates and Google, this is a clear
case of aiding and abetting which is as strong as the original case of shameful
stealing (sorry, I meant borrowing) of speeches.
Next time, the world should give us a
break in Africa anytime another leader plagiarizes as this seems to be the fad
now. I am appealing to the rest of the world to show at least a little empathy
in the light of the daunting challenges confronting us and the great
aspirations burning within us as a continent. The last thing we care about is
the originality of a speech. For example, in Nigeria, my beloved country, the
giant of Africa, we greatly aspire to become a manufacturing giant by producing
pencils starting from 2018 and not to mention that we have not started
producing toothpicks. This is still a future aspiration that will come perhaps
after the pencil milestone. The great cassava bread commercialization project
is still in the works and not forgetting to mention that we are tinkering with
the idea of our youths dressing masquerades in order to create jobs and become
a tourist giant. These few examples should give the rest of the world a clue
that we are aspirational and we set our sights on greater things in this
continent. We do not need to be bothered by tiny issues arising from ‘copy and
paste’ actions of Presidents and presidential aides.
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