As we wait patiently for the unveiling and punishment for the mystery deputy director already fingered to have plagiarized Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech for the president’s “change begins with me” reorientation speech, it is pertinent to navigate the presidency that is so accident-prone and infested with the spirit of errors. This should not be in Nigeria’s presidency.
And here is the thing, the reproach called plagiarism that just rocked the presidency on the eve of the UN General Assembly was self inflicted and avoidable. It is part of the sad consequences of the president’s failure to organize a functional bureaucracy in his office as was noted on March 19, this year when I noted the danger of losing momentum in an article entitled: “Before the honeymoon expires” on this same page.
The honeymoon has since expired and the spirit of gaffes is hovering dangerously over Nigeria’s presidency. This is a very complex paradox of development in Nigeria’s seat of power. But let’s simplify the complex elements before we proceed. All we are saying is that the president must listen to people who speak truths to power. And so one of the truths that will set him free is the expediency of overhauling his bureaucracy for operational efficiency. We will return to this construct (presidential bureaucracy) presently.
What of the experts in the house?
But then there is yet another paradox: the office of the president, (including the vice president’s office) parades a lot of intellectuals and tested professionals even in the business of writing for the mass media. I mean there are very well known brilliant officials in the presidency that could have taken care of the clearly avoidable plagiarism scandal. And so, whatever happened to the two former presidents of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) Mr. Femi Adesina and Malam Garba Shehu, who are Special Adviser & Senior Special Assistant, (Media & Publicity to the President! In all modesty, they are not just part of the aristocracy of the Nigerian press, they are part of the brightest and the best in journalism. They are very resourceful editors who rose through the ranks (in reporting and writing). They know the rules of even academic writing.
How were these president’s strong men bypassed in the art of editing their principal’s keynote speech? How did a mystery deputy director displace them in speech drafting and editing? What is more mysterious, there is Senator Babafemi Ojudu, Political Adviser to the President (VP’s office), another senior editor in the house. What of Mr. Laolu Akande? He is not just an editor, he was teaching journalism (part time) too in some New York universities before his current assignment as a Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President, Media & Publicity (VP’s Office). Besides, the Economic Adviser to the President (VP’s Office), Dr. Adeyemi Dipeolu is an intellectual of repute.
There are more respected scholars in the presidency. Even the Vice President himself is a world-class Professor of Law who has been teaching and practicing Law for about three decades. Is it not a reproach to be mentioning plagiarism where these giants are in cruise control? Why should the president of Nigeria be living by this riverside and washing his hands with spittle? There is a sense here in which one can hazard a guess that there is something wrong with the organizational structure in the presidency that cannot harness its the intellectual capital.
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