The Nation Newspaper

Tag: PLAGIARISM

  • FUOYE declares zero-tolerance for plagiarism

    Vice Chancellor, Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Oye-Ekiti Prof. Kayode Shoremekun has declared  zero-tolerance for plagiarism in the institution.

    He said  plagiarism  would affect the university status in the realm of qualitative education.

    The vice chancellor, who was represented by the Dean, Faculty of Engineering, spoke at the maiden matriculation of the School of Postgraduate Studies, at Oye-Ekiti.

    Prof. Shoremekun said it was better to give credit to the author of an intellectual property rather than stealing somebody’s work without giving credit to the owner.

    He explained that plagiarism  would negatively affect the university and also the lecturer as well as the students involved.

    He, however, urged the new students to shun acts of plagiarism in their research work for the society’s betterment.

    About 292 students matriculated for their Masters, Post-graduate Diploma and Ph.D. programmes into 30 departments across five faculty, covering 70 programmes.

    Prof. Shoremekun, who described the maiden postgraduate matriculation  has a landmark achievement, said among the 12 federal universities established by former President Goodluck Jonathan, FUOYE is leading the rest in academics and infrastructural development.

    He said the university has a population of 17,000 students for its two multi-campus.

    He urged the newly admitted students to shun any form of anti-social activities capable of disrupting smooth running of the university.

    Prof. Shoremekun also advised the students to remain focus during their educational sojourn in the institution.

    He also admonished them to manage their time very well while pursuing their academics in the institution.

    On the dwindling research endeavours by university students, particularly at the postgraduate level, Prof. Soremekun attributed this to low level of support from the Federal Government and private institutions.

    He added that for any nation to grow in Africa, there was need for qualitative research in higher institutions, saying sustainable growth and meaningful growth are only achievable via adequate and continuous research.

    He urged the government and other education stakeholders as well as postgraduate students across the nation’s universities to put in more efforts in research studies.

     

  • Plagiarism: ASUU disowns Unilorin lecturer

    THE Leadership of Ibadan Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has disowned Dr. Usman Adebimpe Raheem of the University of Ilorin, who is facing allegations of plagiarism and intellectual fraud.

    The ASUU leadership maintained that its chairperson for the University of Ilorin is Dr. Kayode Afolayan, who was “illegally sacked by the university of Ilorin administration”.

    The Ibadan Zone of ASUU covers the University of Ilorin, University of Ibadan, Osun State University and Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso.

    The Nation, on Tuesday, reported that Raheem is facing intellectual fraud and plagiarism case.

    In a statement, entitled: “Re: Unilorin ASUU chair faces plagiarism crisis: A disclaimer”, issued in Ibadan, ASUU Zonal Chairman Dr. Ade Adejumo and University of Ibadan Chapter Chairman Dr. Deji Omole stated that “for the avoidance of doubt, Dr. Raheem is not known to ASUU and he is not the chairman of ASUU Unilorin Branch”.

    According to the zonal leadership, Raheem “is an impostor and leader of a renegade group backed by the management of UNILORIN that calls itself ASUU”.

    Adejumo and Omole stated that the chairperson of UNILORIN branch is Dr. Kayode Niyi Afolayan, whose “illegal termination of appointment and that of the branch secretary, Dr. Solomon Oyelekan, by former VC Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali, is being contested in court”.

    “As a union of intellectuals, ASUU does not condone unethical practices and acts of fraud among its members. The union hopes that all the authorities directly concerned and mentioned in the story, especially the University of Ilorin and University of Ibadan, where Dr. Raheem obtained his PhD, that has alleged plagiarised materials, will act immediately on this matter to restore sanity to ethical practices and standards in the academia being eroded by this alleged shameful conduct of Dr. U.A Raheem,” the statement stressed.

  • Yabatech acquires software for detecting plagiarism

    The Governing Council of Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech) on Wednesday said it had acquired a world-class security software capable of detecting any act of plagiarism in write-ups submitted by students and lecturers.

    Mr Lateef Fagbemi, Chairman, Governing Council of the college stated this at the 11th International Science, Technology, Education, Arts, Management and Social Sciences (iSTEAMS) Conference in Lagos.

    Fagbemi spoke on “Plagiarism and Its Legal Implications Within Academic Environments: Consequences On The Institutions And Offender”.

    The three-day conference organised by the Research Nexus Africa Network, in collaboration with the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ends on June 29.

    Fagbemi said the software would detect the slightest act of plagiarism and copyright.

    According to him, with the software, the college is confident that products, are now better secured and their final works, much more reassuring.

    He said the conference was apt as it brings to the front burner, the unfortunate situation of plagiarism.

    “Educational institutions must step up the quality control mechanisms and academic papers submitted by writers must be thoroughly checked to detect a possibility of plagiarism.

    “Yabatech has now acquired world-class security software that can detect even the slightest act of plagiarism in write-ups submitted by our students and lecturers.

    “This is where the deployment of technology comes in.

    “Relevant software must be acquired by our institutions to detect any possible case of plagiarism and be able to nip it in the bud,’’ he said.

    Fagbemi further remarked that plagiarism was prevalent, not only in tertiary institutions but also in science, journalism, literature, film creation and other areas.

    He said that in the academic and intellectual industry, plagiarism was a serious ethical offence.

    According to him, plagiarism cases could be detected even in works of famous writers, songs, filmmakers, philosopher, scientist, and public workers, among others.

    “Plagiarism is not in itself a crime, but can constitute copyright infringement.’’

    Fagbemi recommended that institutions must step-up the quality control mechanisms, while government must set up legislative intervention in curbing the problem of plagiarism.

    “ Our laws must be re-jigged to cater for the menace as a specific problem.

    “A specific problem deserves a special and deliberate solution.

    “The legislature must promulgate laws that specifically and pointedly address plagiarism, and all its variance, taking it away from the adaptation of the copyright laws, under which it is currently treated.’’

    Also speaking, Dr Obafemi Bank-Olemoh, Leadership/Business Intelligence expert at Caleb Business School, Lagos urged the Federal Government to develop the human resource capital to achieve industrialisation.

    Bank-Olemoh said the three tiers of government needed to re-access and reinforce the implementation of Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) policies.

    He spoke in a paper titled: “Nigeria’s Industrialisation Drive cannot succeed if not anchored on the Investment and Development of Human Resource Capital; particularly on Technical Vocational Education (TVE)”.

    He said the success of Free Trade Zones hinged on addressing infrastructure deficit by appropriate funding.

    He noted that sustainability of Nigerian Industrial Zones could not be achieved if the expatriate quota abuse is not controlled.

    According to him, the integration system pathway should be adopted to bring together TVE curriculum, academic and applied curriculum, the labour market demands, institutions and the society at large.

    “The focus now should be on the development of a viable natural system of a vocational and technical education programme that will have easy access and exit learning pathways.

    “It must be validated by accredited learning that will lead to work or continued progress along another learning pathway.

    “This will help ginger youths and adults to see TVE as challenging and worthwhile,’’ he said.

    Mr Obafemi Omokungbe, Rector, Yabatech commended iSTEAMS for organising the conference and urged participants to be active in all sessions.

  • World Intellectual Property Day: Through the eyes of the creative

    As writer, I have the responsibility to be creative, break bounds, be innovative in ideas. Intellectual Property ( IP ) is my exclusive preserve.

    I stay awake at night to make this happen. I work hard to put in creativity into writing and eventually come up with ingenious write ups that not only stand the test of time but also improve the social, political and economic aesthetics of my country.

    Often times, the challenge is getting a publisher with the right set of skills and attitude to birth the brainchildren to reality.

    The arduous processes of writing, editing, proofreading and other publishing processes are a few of the brain and hand work a typical writer experiences.

    There is nothing as disappoint and heart-rendering like someone else reaping the reward of your hard work by plagiarising it.

    According to dictionary.com, Plagiarism is an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own, as by not crediting the original author.

    To curb the menace of plagiarism, legislations in the form of Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks were created by the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO ) which was established in the year 2,000. It protects the intellectual property of the creative.

    WIPO creates awareness to how patent, copyright, trademarks and industrial designs operate.

    WIPO saw a need to protect intellectual property and came up with the global celebration called World Intellectual Property Day celebrated yearly on the 26th of April to promote creativity, innovation and intelligence.

    Intellectual property ( IP ) refers to creativity in minds such as inventions, literary and artistic works, industrial design and symbol names and images used in commercial.

    IP aims to foster an environment in which creativity and innovation can flourish.

    The theme of this year is Powering Change: Women in Innovation and Creativity.

    This day celebrates the brilliance, intelligence and courage of women who are driving change in our world and shaping our common future.

    Usually women have to work extra hard and be extra creative, influential and energetic so that their works and ideas are not swept under the carpet.

    One very quintessential example of such women is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; she is one of the frontiers of the new generation of Nigerian authors.

    Chimamanda has won the Common Wealth Writer Prize for the best first book “Purple Hibiscus”.

    She created an intellectual property around her works and has swiftly grown  her reputation and shaping the future.

    Another is Nike Davies Okundaye,  a professional textiles artist and a painter.

    She is known for colourful batiks and paintings.

    The founder and director of Nike Arts Gallery and she offers training to young artist in visual, musical and the performing arts.

    However, intellectual property has been an important prerequisite for development of advanced goods and services. It entails patent , copyright and trademarks.

    Patent is a government authority or licence conferring a right or title for a set period especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using or selling invention.

    While copyright is a form of intellectual property protection provided by the law.

    Trademark is recognizable signs, design or symbol which identifies products and services of a particular source from others.

    Nevertheless, WIPO is poised to protect our intellectual property from being plagiarized and the protection is available for the original works of inventors that are fixed in  tangible forms, whether published or unpublished.

  • Nollywood actor wants stiffer penalty for piracy, plagiarism

    A veteran Nollywood actor, Mr Dele Odule, on Monday urged the National Assembly to enact a law enforcing stiffer punishment for anybody or group found guilty of piracy or plagiarism.

    Odule, who is the National President of Theatre Arts and Motion Pictures Producers of Nigeria (TAMPAN), made the appeal in llorin on Monday while speaking with newsmen.

    The Nollywood actor said that piracy, though a global problem occurred at an alarming rate in Nigeria.

    He attributed the high incidence to the low penalty meted out on the perpetrators and non-enforcement of laws against the offence.

    “Film producers in Nigeria do not have retirement benefits like civil servants and ordinarily, their production should be their benefits after retirement.

    “However, in a situation where these works have been pirated, they are doomed and have nothing to look forward to in future,’’ Odule said.

    He appealed to the Federal Government to borrow a leaf from developed countries by assisting film producers in creating an enabling environment to operate.

    The actor appealed that a large film village should be built, where actors would be required to pay a token to the government to achieve their mission.

    He also solicited that loan facilities should be provided for actors at low interest rates.

    The Nollywood actor disclosed that under his leadership as the TAMPAN president plans had reached an advanced stage to professionalise theatre and film production in the country.

    This, he said, was to guard against non-professionals bastardising their good jobs.

  • Beyond speeches and plagiarism

    Beyond speeches and plagiarism

    WHILE giving his keynote address at the launch of the “Change Begins With Me” reorientation campaign in mid-September, President Muhammadu Buhari lifted a passage from U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2008 election victory speech without acknowledging the source. Readers immediately noticed the ethical contradictions inherent in a speech that seemed to talk down so sanctimoniously on Nigerians, excoriating them for dishonest behaviour, but which itself embraced dishonest intellectual practice. The presidency immediately accepted responsibility and announced that the speechwriter who borrowed the offending paragraph would be sanctioned. In the past few months, the U.S. election campaigns had been convulsed by accusations of plagiarism prompting many commentators to wonder how the offending speechwriters hoped to get away with the act in the age of Internet. It was, therefore, not expected that any speechwriter would fall victim again so quickly.
    Plagiarism is not a new thing; it will continue with humanity till the end of history. While it must be condemned and exposed, the public should be interested in something much more fundamental about speeches, especially speeches by political leaders, something that gives readers a window into the hearts and minds of those who own the speeches. This column is for instance more concerned about what the Buhari speech says about the president — his perspective, his temperament, his ideology, his character — than what he borrowed here and there without acknowledgement. It is important for him to acknowledge his borrowings, whether of ideas or phrases; but it is much more important for him to come across to his national and international audiences as possessing a genuine, progressive and coherent worldview. The Buhari “Change Begins With Me” speech, like all his speeches so far, comes across as scripted by others superimposing their worldview on the president’s limited and inchoate worldview. Now and then there are droppings of the president’s fond mantras, but substantially, there is nothing transcendental, nothing deep, and nothing expansive.
    President Buhari is not alone in this department of projecting unconvincing ideas and paradigms about society, economy and politics. Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan never made any impassioned and resonating speech in his more than five years in office. Perhaps the late Umaru Yar’Adua would have managed a few or so given his auspicious beginnings when he made a speech that honestly admitted the weaknesses of Nigeria’s electoral process which had just gifted him the presidency. His urbanity, not to talk of his intellectualism and open-mindedness, would probably have afforded him the chance of deeply affecting his people and society. Mercifully, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo never attempted to make a grand speech, for he was not capable of it, seeing how unconvincing he is about everything, and how distorted and narrow his worldview has remained.
    This column is concerned about the speeches of world leaders, past and present, including those of Nigerian leaders. The British and Americans tend to pay attention to their speeches, and see them as opportunities to propound new ideas and ways of doing things, and of influencing and affecting the lives of their peoples. Nigerian leaders view speeches as opportunities to bore the public with homilies and statistics of their economic policies, and to blame the people for the country’s woes and read them the riot act. Nigerian leaders are unable to summon the passion and deep conviction, not to say the long and hard thinking, necessary to really affect the lives of the people for the better and make them believe in themselves and their country. It is not surprising that their speeches are nearly entirely the products of the exertions of speechwriters. Unfortunately, by nature, speechwriters cannot place themselves in the shoes of the leaders.
    What great leaders need are clerical assistants and researchers, for no speechwriter can sufficiently possess the moral or political or even ideational universe of the leader, or imbue them with the peculiar vigour and passion of his vision. No speechwriter could have helped the iconic US president Abraham Lincoln pen his famous 1863 Gettysburg address, one that was at first universally vilified, but which became one of the best ever with that memorable line that seems to define and encapsulate very simply what democracy is all about. Who else but a genuinely convincing Winston Churchill could have penned in 1940 during the Battle of France that equally famous and defiant peroration about fighting on the beaches, landing grounds, in the hills, in the fields and in the streets, and never contemplating surrender? And who but a Churchill could have given that inspiring and sublime line in August 1940 about the huge sacrifice of Britain’s airmen who were far outnumbered by German airmen during The Battle of Britain in World War II? “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”, Churchill had said.
    No Nigerian head of state has made or written a memorable speech, though the occasion had often presented itself. Ex-head of state Murtala Mohammed’s “Africa Has Come of Age” speech was written by a bureaucrat. Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba and a few others managed to offer posterity a few inspiring elocutionary mementoes. What Nigeria has got from its leaders, nearly all of whom were neither convinced nor practicing democrats, were drab and soulless speeches propounding autocratic and short-termist ideas which future generations will not take the trouble of remembering. Until true democrats are voted into the presidency, that is, cerebral leaders with fresh and daunting ideas about remaking society, there will be no memorable speeches, only speeches regurgitated by disinterested politicians and redacted by detached and unfeeling speechwriters. It is indeed the tragedy of Nigeria that since the return to democracy in 1999, no leader worth the name has been produced.

  • Case of Buhari’s alleged plagiarism

    Case of Buhari’s alleged plagiarism

    Easily the biggest news last week was the allegation that President Muhammadu Buhari committed plagiarism in his speech “Change Begins With Me,” with which he launched his national re-orientation programme on September 14. The speech itself had come under a lot of flak for seemingly transferring the onus of bringing about the much-needed change in attitude in the country from its leadership onto its ordinary folk

    “I am therefore,” he had said in the course of the speech, “appealing to all Nigerians to be part of this campaign. Our citizens must realise that the change they want to see begins with them, and that personal and social reforms are not theoretic exercise. If you have not seen the change in you, you cannot see it in others or even the larger society. In other words, before you ask ‘where is the change they promised us’, you must first ask ‘how far have I changed my ways’,  ‘what have I done to be part of the change for the greater good of society’.”

    The uproar caused by this seemingly bait-and-switch speech had barely subsided when the allegation of the president’s plagiarism surfaced. It seems to have triggered widespread moral outrage and an even louder uproar.

    The outrage and even the uproar, if not its pitch, are justified; plagiarism, as Wikipedia points out in its treatment of the subject, may not be an offence defined or punished by law because it is not the same as copyright, but it is unethical. It, therefore, stands to reason that the higher the status of a plagiarist, the more unethical the plagiarism.

    Even then there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for the terrible pettiness of the politics that Buhari’s political enemies have been trying to play with the allegation.

    Leading this implacable crowd is – of course, no prize for guessing right – Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, whose hatred for anything and almost anyone Islamic and Northern has since become legendary. Buhari, he said on his social media account, “has no memory, knows no history, plagiarises other President’s speeches and reads only the cartoon section in the newspapers”. Buhari’s plagiarising Obama’s speech, he said, “is outrageous and it has brought shame to our nation”.

    No doubt the timing and context of the plagiarism saga could hardly have been worse for the President, coming as they did on the eve of his departure to New York for this year’s United Nations’ Summit and as a speech which was supposed to inspire positive change in Nigerians’ attitudes. Even then it is no excuse for Fani-Kayode’s demagoguery. Most certainly it is no excuse for his blatant lie that the President is a habitual literary thief.

    Since his inaugural speech on May 29 last year the President has delivered more than a dozen speeches at home and abroad. This is the first time he has been accused of plagiarism. Since then there has, of course, been insinuations that the theme of even his inaugural speech was plagiarised from a speech in French decades ago by France’s president, the late General Charles DeGaulle. That allegation is probably untenable since important nuances and details are often lost in translations.

    But even if the insinuations are justified, there is the big difference that presidents invariably don’t personally write their speeches. Therefore at worst they can only be vicariously responsible for the exact wordings of their speeches.

    In the particular case of Buhari’s “Change Begins With Me” speech, it is important that the presidency owned up to its mistake without equivocations, apologised and promised to take measures against a repeat.

    People like Fani-Kayode who, no matter what, are prepared to crucify the President even about something he was not personally responsible for, would do well to remember that the very man whose speech he was accused of plagiarising – America’s President Barack Obama – has himself been accused of stealing other people’s words several times, probably not completely without justification.

    This is not to excuse one wrong by merely pointing fingers at someone else’s. No. It is simply to put Buhari’s wrong in context. In that sense Buhari’s vicarious literary theft pales in significance compared to that of several accomplished journalists and columnists in America and here at home, whose alleged literary thefts were direct. The charge against the President certainly pales in significance to the literal theft of our commonwealth by the PDP regime – a regime in which Fani-Kayode was a presidential spokesman and minister – for 16 long years.

    A little over four years ago Dr. Fareed Zakaria, a well-regarded columnist and editor at Time magazine and CNN was found to have plagiarised a paragraph from an article in New Yorker magazine in a piece in his column entitled “The Case for Gun Control”. He pleaded guilty and was immediately suspended by the magazine and the TV station, both of which are in the same stable.

    His suspension lasted only one week and though his reputation has been dented, his journalism career has not ended. On the contrary, he has remained a credible and respected voice in global journalism.

    Here at home, readers old enough may remember the famous case, 30 years ago, of Ray Ekpu when he was accused of plagiarising from the English philosopher, Thomas Paine’s book, “The Age of Reason,” by a two-some of Dele Momodu, Ovation’s publisher, and Kunle Ajibade, editor-in-chief of The News. At the time the two were post-graduate students of the University of Ife now known as Obafemi Awolowo University.

    The genesis of the case was a book on Dele Giwa, co-founder of Newswatch along with Ekpu, Yakubu Mohammed and Dan Agbese, who was assassinated in a first-of-its-kind parcel bombing of a Nigerian journalist. The authors of the book were Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, who later became managing director of the now comatose, if not dead, Daily Times, and Dele Olojede, who was to win a Pulitzer for international reporting years after he moved to America to ply his trade.

    Their book, “Born to Run”, was somewhat unflattering of Giwa’s colleagues at Newswatch. An apparently angry Ekpu wrote a review of the book in which he paid its authors back in kind. As students, Momodu and Ajibade thought they detected copious reproduction of Paine in Ekpu’s angry review.

    Accordingly they jointly wrote an article accusing Ekpu of plagiarism. For weeks none of the country’s newspapers they approached would touch it. Finally Guardian Express, then an evening newspaper in The Guardian stable, ran it. Then all hell broke lose. The military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida considered the allegation serious enough that it withdrew the congratulation it had written to Ekpu for winning the International Editor of the Year Prize awarded by a New York-based media review outfit.

    Ekpu threatened to sue The Guardian. The newspaper’s worried management tried to talk Momodu and Ajibade into retracting their allegations, but the two youngmen stood their ground. They did so even after Ekpu’s colleague, Agbese, wrote an article with the self-explanatory title “Green in their eyes,” in defence of Ekpu.

    Ekpu never sued the authors. However, through the interventions of some elders of the profession at the time, most notably Aremo Segun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State and at the time managing director of Daily Times, the matter was allowed to gradually die down. Today Ekpu remains one of Nigeria’s brightest lights in journalism.

    What the cases of Zakaria and Ekpu clearly show is that, though unethical, passing off someone else’s words as your own is not necessarily a fatal offence even for those in the business of professional communication.

    Not only is Buhari NOT a professional communicator. He has been honourable enough to own up to the allegation against him and has promised to punish the author of his embarrassment, and through him, the nation’s embarrassment.

    Some people have called for the sack of whoever was responsible for the gaff. I think that would be extreme because the offence was most probably committed not out of malice but out of a desire to make one’s principal look good.  And, at least in America whose model of democracy we aspire to, absence of malice can be justification even for proven libel.

    Not surprisingly the plagiarism allegation has triggered claims by two media consultants, Akin Fadeyi and Omor Bazuaye, that the very concept of “Change Begins with Me” was theirs, but was stolen by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, after they’d presented it to him early this year.

    The minister has, of course, rejected their claim. He said he started work on the concept long before he met any of the two. His story of the sequence of events leading to its launching last week sounds more believable to me than those of Fadeyi and Bazuaye.

    In any case the good thing is that the claims and counter-claims here are copyright issues and therefore a matter of law rather than ethics. Mohammed has challenged the two to go to court. Either they pick up his gauntlet or they should shut up.

    Today we are in an age of social media where the Internet, as Time magazine said in its cover story of August 26, is apparently being lost to a “culture of hate” and a “tyranny of the mob.”

    Reasonable and knowledgeable people in the society owe themselves and their country a commitment to fight back against that culture and tyranny. The allegation of plagiarism against Buhari is a test of that commitment. Hopefully it will not be flunked.

  • Avoidable plagiarism

    For a government trying hard to convince its supporters and opponents about its “change” agenda, the insertion of two paragraphs from the United States President Barrack Obama’s 2008 victory speech in President Muhammadu’s Buhari’s September 8 address at the launch of the “Change Begins with Me’’ campaign is an unfortunate development.

    To err is human, but an error of this kind can arm critics who are not interested in focusing on the message of change. But the slip as noted by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in his press statement, should have been avoided.

    Notwithstanding the massive support that brought the federal government to power, it must not lose sight of the fact that there are enough ‘wailers’, apologies to Femi Adesina, and even disappointed supporters who will not spare any wrong doing, however minor.

    The culprit of the embarrassing insertion in President Buhari’s speech should have known that with the Internet, virtually every claim can be cross-checked, while similarities in statements or outright plagiarism can easily be found out. All you need to do is to put any suspicious paragraph in a search engine and the original source will show up.

    Recently, Malania, wife of the US Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was accused of plagiarising a speech by Obama’s wife, Michelle. It was hard for the Trump’s team to deny the accusation when the two speeches were aired.

    If any speech writer finds any quote irresistible and it cannot be completely rewritten, what should have been done is to attribute it to the original owner. For me, there is nothing wrong in giving credit to another author. It confirms how widely you have read and your readiness not to take credit for what is not yours.

    Sometimes after several readings, it is possible to forget that a particular quote is from another writer. But at the level of a presidential speech in a politically-charged situation like we have in the country, such an error can be very costly as the present instance has turned out.

    Good enough, the Presidency has admitted its fault and promised to take appropriate disciplinary measures to prevent a recurrence. There should be no room for any overzealous staff, like the one said to have been responsible for the insertion, to write any speech which should not be subjected to critical scrutiny.

    Beyond the Presidency, there is a major lesson for all to learn from the incident.

    While the faceless presidential speech writer can be the plagiarism offender for the moment, he or she is not the first and will definitely not be the last. Plagiarism is not new to us. Many, including university lecturers, have been found guilty in the past, while many others yet to be caught are currently engaged in the act.

    The Internet seems to have made it easy to plagiarise and unfortunately not many see any wrong with it. While plagiarism at the Presidency stands condemned, it should not be condoned at any level.

    Many students nowadays simply search on google and get write-ups by other persons which they submit as their own. There are cases of complete academic projects edited minimally and submitted to earn degrees.

    There are also many websites and blogs that violate the copyrights of original content owners with impunity. They profit from contents they didn’t pay for to produce. It is not enough to copy stories and credit the source without the permission of the owners in some cases.

    These unethical practices will continue as long as offenders are not named and shamed. We must all learn to give credit to whom credit is due.

  • The perils of plagiarism

    The perils of plagiarism

    Poor Melanie Trump!

    Her speech before the Republican National Convention, in Cleveland, Ohio, was the former  model’s opportunity to show the world that she was not just a trophy wife, all glamour and fashion, but an accomplished woman in her own right,  dutiful wife and caring mother, ready and waiting to be First Lady of the United States.

    It did just that, but only for the time her delivery and the applause in the hall lasted.  No sooner had she left the podium for the Trump family box than word went out that portions of the speech bore more than a striking similarity to Michelle Obama’s speech introducing her husband, the future president, at the Democratic National Convention eight years earlier.

    On the eve of her event, Mrs Trump had told an interviewer on national television that she wrote the speech herself, with minimal help from others.

    Wasn’t this, then, a case of plagiarism?

    It was, many said, on seeing the two texts displayed side by side. No, said the Trump people, doubling down as always.  The words at issue expressed Mrs Trump’s feelings, and it was of no consequence that Mrs Obama had earlier employed those very words in a similar setting.

    Those ever so ready to muddy the waters insisted that Mrs Obama herself had for her speech lifted lines from Elizabeth Dole’s introduction of Bob Dole on a similar occasion some two decades earlier.  So, why the fuss?

    In the end, when the matter refused to go away and was taking attention away from the GOP Convention, the Trump camp owned up, or more likely caused an aide to own up to the lifting.

    While the controversy raged, a Mrs Trump’s web site on which she qualified herself as holder of a degree in design and architecture from the University of Ljubljana, in her native Slovenia, suddenly vanished from the Internet.

    Her explanation?

    The web site was outdated and did not “accurately reflect” her “current business and professional interests.”

    The more plausible explanation is that she never earned the degree, having dropped out of the university in her first year.

    But I digress.

    Plagiarism is appropriating another person’s ideas, thoughts or words, or taking credit for another person’s literary or artistic work.  At bottom, it is an ethical issue.  But the courts litigate it as copyright infringement.  It occurs more frequently than is generally realised.

    I am told that there are persons who make a living scouring published material for plagiarism.  Whenever they find it, they alert the person whose work has been plagiarised, with the unspoken understanding that the sleuth will get a cut of any compensation awarded by the courts or through settlement.  Their task has been made easier by sophisticated computer software that can sniff intellectual theft wherever it occurs.

    Plagiarism is a serious matter and often has serious consequences.  Ask Senator (as he then was) Joe Biden, now Vice President of the United States.  Launching a bid for the presidential ticket of the Democratic Party in September 1987, he uttered these stirring words:

    “Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife… is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? …Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It’s because they didn’t have a platform on which to stand.”

    Biden, it soon turned out, had appropriated the thoughts, ideas and words Neil Kinnock, leader of the British Labour Party, had employed several months earlier in a powerful speech at the Welsh Labour Party Conference.

    Here is what Kinnock said at the Conference:

    “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.”

    The difference is not clear.  And Biden’s presidential bid ended well before it got under way.  Too bad he – or his speechwriters – could not resist the seductive appeal of Kinnock’s rhetorical delivery.

    Plagiarism matters.

    Many a journalist here has been undone by plagiarism.  In 2010, a New York Times business reporter resigned after he was accused of plagiarising from the Wall Street Journal.  Also in 2010, a reporter for the online newspaper The Daily Beast resigned when he was found to have taken sentences from another newspaper, The Miami Herald, and to have used them in his reporting. In 2011, the Washington Post announced that one of its reporters had appropriated material from the Arizona Republic.

    I myself have seen chunks of unattributed material from The Economist, The Guardian (UK) and the BBC in by-lined articles in the Nigerian media, traditional and online.  I have also seen material from my own work and the work of leading columnists employed in the same manner, and have on at least one occasion brought the matter to the attention of the perpetrator and his editor.  As far as I know, no penalty followed.

    One of my most stultifying experiences as editorial page editor for The Guardian (Lagos) followed publication of an article that came in the mail, titled “This thing called luck.”  I had  my suspicions on reading it.  From start to finish, it was an elegant, seamless composition.  Every word was in place.

    It bristled with wit and wisdom and learning.  And it was not in the least laboured.  On the contrary, it seemed to have been put together with the minimum of effort.

    If the fellow submitting it was that good, where had he been all these years?  Why had we not heard from him or of him much earlier?  These were some of the questions on my mind as Iwondered whether I should publish it or not.  In the end, I decided to give the correspondent the benefit of my doubts.

    A week after the article appeared, I got a letter from another correspondent rebuking me for my credulity.  The article I had caused to appear on the highly regarded Op-Ed page of The Guardian, he remonstrated, was almost word for word a Lance Morrow essay that TIME magazine had published a decade earlier.  And by way of proof, he attached a photocopy of the Morrow essay. I apologised to our readers.

    Why do people plagiarise?

    To avoid the hard work of putting their own thoughts and ideas and words together in a coherent form, to appear more accomplished than they are, and to be admired.

    Whatever the reason, plagiarism is a risky venture.  Plagiarists will be found out sooner than later, and any work they produce subsequently will be suspect.

    There is no harm in borrowing phrases and sentences and even paragraphs from others. We all do.  The cardinal sin is taking credit for them.

  • ‘We can end plagiarism, enhance local research’

    ‘We can end plagiarism, enhance local research’

    UniCentral is a Nigerian educational enterprise striving to provide educational, social and support benefits to students worldwide and to help develop IT for sustainable national development. Its MD/CEO, Mrs Zsuzanna Ogunmiloyo, a Hungarian married to a Nigerian, explains how her organisation plans to utilise its global experience to help Nigeria earn respect and foreign exchange through educational research.

    Could you give us an insight into what you are trying to do with the National Universities Commission (NUC)?

    What our organisation, Unicentral, is trying to do is to fill a vacuum towards tackling our developmental challenges in Nigeria. Nigeria is a country blessed with an unusually high number of cerebral people of high intellect whose sound capabilities should be a real blessing. However we have not really put such intellectual capital to much use for the nation’s benefit in the 21st century’s knowledge economy.

    Far back when we were children, Nigeria and countries such as China, Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea used to be grouped as Third World countries.  In spite of ambitious programmes like Vision 2020 and others, not much has happened so far.

    We decided to do a survey of what could probably be the problem in comparison to other countries with whom we were categorized as Third World back then. We realised that here in Nigeria we have lots of innovative ideas; people reach out for further education in various fields, including science and technology. Indeed, many Nigerians are all over the globe, working with NASA, IBM and other tech giants that are developing novel things and ideas.

    Part of the problem we have is that here, the ideas do not team up or join forces. To actualize development, science must be able to speak with technology and innovation if we really want to get something enduring out of it all.

    We approached the Federal Government; spoke with a couple of people in the government circles. We wrote to the Ministry of Education, the NUC and the commission gave us the go ahead to do a presentation, which was widely accepted.  Then, we took a further step to meet the Committee of Vice Chancellors, where they all accepted that it is highly necessary that we implement our initiatives.

    There is no way we can do things like this without funding and support. So, we started speaking with other government agencies.

    What we are doing is finding digital solution towards our nation’s intellectual enrichment. In Nigeria, any good thing that you diligently search for is within reach. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) came to our aid. When we met their Head of Research and Development, he was very enthusiastic.  He said it was dear to his heart and thought we should go ahead with it and he gave his support. That was how the funding started and we did the pilot scheme.

    Is the funding from NITDA enough to drive your project?

    From NITDA we got our initial technical and financial support and since then, NITDA’s Dr Vincent Olatunji has been monitoring affairs, making sure that things are working accordingly and we have been planning together. We have been speaking to other agencies and the response has been overwhelming as well. They also want our collective efforts on this programme to succeed. We just got back from the Ministry of Science and Technology. The shockingly pleasant assurance they gave us is that everyone is ready to move forward; petroleum is not the only thing that we should rely on, we can as well make much of our knowledge and intellectual endowments. So, that is where we are.

    What we have done thus far is that we have visited our universities because our stuff comes in two phases, we have the innovative findings, then we have the people who are just starting to do research. The only place where you can link up with people who are just starting to do research is in the Nigerian universities and higher institutions. After much deliberation with them, we discovered that a lot of researches in the universities are not original. So they asked us to come up with a robust system to identify plagiarised research work. We approached a Nigerian software engineer who is helping develop a very effective software. In the United States and Europe, they have such software like Turnitin which is being used by some 15, 000 institutions and about 30 million students and researchers. Such software would revolutionise the experience of writing to learn and its formative feedback and originality checking services would promote critical thinking. We also want to score students’ theses faster and more accurately than ever before.

    Does that imply that it could put an end to plagiarism?

    With such software, what they do basically is that once you put your words in the system, it will scan it and tell you the multiple sources where you have copied. Once this kicks off, as a student or researcher, you will have to do your work. We know that it is going to be very challenging for students initially because of resources or materials but it is going to mark a major shift from our usual way of doing things.

    Normally, the current process is such that students go to their lecturers for correction of every page but lecturers can only correct the use of English and what is being put in there. Now, once you finish your dissertation, our organisation and various institutions/agencies will make our system freely available to students. All they need to do is to upload the research work through us and we generate a report for the school. The school will call you and say: ‘Look, what can you say about this?’ We all know that copying someone else’s original work without permission or attribution is a criminal offence under copyright laws. That is by the side but the essence of having it is to do things that can push Nigeria to greater heights tomorrow.

    Once students upload their academic work, how does the report or analyses come out?

    Once students upload and send to us, we will generate report and within two to three days send it back to the school. It will not go directly to the student. The other option is that students can get materials from us – there is nothing stopping students from getting materials from the website but you must acknowledge the original source. That is how it works. Once the report is generated and sent back to school, they will have to go and redo it again until they get it right.

    What of a situation where a student who has finished the final year thesis and is about leaving school when this new system makes the institution to realise that the thesis is plagiarised; what happens to such a student?

    That means the student is not qualified to graduate; that is how it is done everywhere. It also means that we need to work with institutions’ academic calendar now. We have to do things in timelier manner and possibly make all arrangements ahead of time. If you are graduating in May, at least by the preceding December, we need to have your materials with us. We are starting with the Federal and State universities, thereafter, we will go to private universities, the polytechnics and Colleges of Education, it is not a thing that we are going to finish overnight, and it is going to be consistent and continuous.

    Will you be starting afresh with current and future academic work without looking at the past?

    We intend to start afresh, making a paradigm shift that would help move Nigeria, its academic and research works towards a great future. This will take me to the second phase of our discussion; the reason why we cannot go far backwards now is that we also want to archive current and future discoveries and findings. When you want to archive, you need enormous time and commitment to do it well. We will be using specialized software and scanners, so it is better we start afresh.

    We have a new government that stands for solid and enduring change from the old ways. However, we are going to give serious attention to intellectually mature researches and innovations that had been condemned to sitting idly in the shelves of various agencies. We want to see how we can archive them, display and commercialise them; any one that needs patents, we will help them do the patency. For any research work that needs further advise or research, we will give them a pointer of where to go.

    The only problem we have in Nigeria is that when references to global or international academic material are needed, or when those outside want to access what we have, they cannot fly to Nigeria every day. We depend on the Internet. Nevertheless, practically the internet in various schools across all parts of Nigeria is not working.

    In this area, we are going to be a repository and connecting nexus with the global research or academic community.

    Does it mean that you will promote outstanding academic and research works in Nigeria to earn international attention and investment?

    Yes! Our idea generally is to start again from the scratch. I feel most grateful to Mr. President, General Mohammadu Buhari. Lately, one of the things that Mr President’s administration has been talking about is benefit of research and self-reliance.

    Do you then see your effort as another dimension of the Buhari administration’s change mantra?

    Exactly! Hitherto, so much attention had been on physical products that can be exported but I can assure you that our people’s academic or research efforts can equally earn global respect and economic results for Nigerians and the nation. The special significance of crude oil is fading away so, we just have to move forward.

    The other agency too we are waiting for them, we are going there daily to discuss with them and the responds has been overwhelming as well but so far the Nigerian mass media has done tremendous job of supporting our initiatives. They are, they are the ones who have been doing a lot of things, including introducing our ides to universities on our behalf.

    Thus far, how many Nigerian universities have you visited?

    We have been to practically 20 federal universities so far. Along the line, we heard about a Professor in Ahmadu Bello University who went to mark academic papers in another university that is not in the Northern part of Nigeria. When he got there, he realised that he was assessing a paper was more like a copy of his own original work and was he was shocked.

    However, once we fully establish our central hub in Nigeria, once you type in or upload just two paragraphs, it will tell you where the content originated.

    Are there potentials for job creation in this effort?

    Yes, our initiative will create jobs as well. Right now, our own organizational strength comprises of fifteen employees. But in the second phase alone, we shall be creating zonal offices. Each one of the six zonal offices would require personnel. Furthermore, in the universities we will need at least three people in every university, to guide stakeholders and explain modalities when necessary. When you multiply that alone, you will be looking at almost 750 people being engaged during our first year.