Buhari's Plagiarism: Some Points in Mitigation!

Liability for plagiarizing portions of Obama's speech, and intending to wow Nigerians with the idiomatic resonance of another man's intellectual work, is of course President Buhari's. But liabilty in this instance is only secondary, and therefore vicarious!


Legally speaking, however, the defendant's culpability is not diluted by whether his liability is primary or secondary! Happily, Obama is not in court against Buhari on this matter. So questions about President Buhari's legal liability are academic, and therefore jejune!

I agree however that even on a legal plane, certain mitigating factors can be urged in favour of President Buhari! But in the eyes of the public, his case is not helped by the fact that even before now, questions have lingered about his academic qualifications. Besides, this is one President that has always struggled to convey his thoughts, and to communicate intelligibly!

His case would have been helped enormously if in the popular imagination he had no need to steal intellectual property, something he already had! But the view is rife that President Buhari has been bestowed with every other gift, but the gift of intellectualism and eloquence!

This is a leader given to direct and simple talk, and his handlers should have realised that, and patterned his speeches along his linguistic idiosyncrasies and idiolect! Try as you may, it is futile to attempt to hew a Cicero out of Buhari! So, stealing some lines out of Obama's poetic cadences was even counter productive. Obama is transcendental not necessarily because of his lines, but because of the way he delivers them!

The only thing left to urge in favour of the President is the way he handled the matter after he was caught red handed. Contrary to his own natural instincts, he did not send Mamman Daura or the EFCC to apprehend the fellow who caught and embarrassed him. He has instead commendably chosen to institute an inquiry into how his speeches are written.

During his first stint in power as head of state, that Nigerian who had the chutzpah to expose him filching Obama's intellectual property would have ended up in Buhari's gulag. That was the sole purpose of Buhari's Decree 4- a draconian legislation which criminalized the truth, so long as the truth had the potential of embarrassing Buhari or any of his officials.

- Kenneth Ikonne SAN