President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Ghana, on the day a super-COMPETENT government was being swarn-in, was the day INCOMPETENCE crawled its way into the new era. Thanks to social media alertness which led to the exposure of multiple capture of plagiarized material.
Two of them were traced to two former American presidents whilst one traced to a sitting African leader. The issue has been over-flugged, but still - not satisfactorily. So many meanings have been given to the plagiarized material in issue though with very skewed rendition from men and women of academia. As usual the issue of intellectual dis-honesty has popped its ugly face.
Since Saturday when the incident occurred and the Communication Officer of the President, taking blame and apologized to the good people of Ghana, the issue has refused to go into oblivion. It is too early - yet. This is so, because even if Ghanaians will allow a non "sleeping dog to lie" - it will still not lie to sleep because it is not time for it to do so.
One of the reasons is because it has assumed a global taste of fun where a buffoon of an Americal President-elect, can throw diplomacy to the wind and insult the black race. It is painful - but is he wrong?
If a freshly inducted President into office, chose to see the 'supremacy' of the white man brain's material, steals it and is caught - why should one blame the white man for his insult instead of the thief who caused us the pain of that insult.
Diverse opinions are advocating heads to roll at the Presidency as well as forgiving them. Which ever way they go, my candid opinion is that nobody is to blame but the President himself.
For all we care to know, the President himself may have prevailed upon the speech-writers to remove the quotation marks/attributions, and let him own them as his personal literary out-pour. This is so, because, George Bush Jr's quote which President Nana Akufo Addo 'owned' was revealing.
Bush said "...Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans [Ghanaians] have ever been a restless, questing , hopeful people. And we must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us".
Our President may have intentionally asked the quotation marks taken off in order to own the literary thought of another President. The fact that the American people which was the emphasis of Geoge Bush Jr. in his inaugural speech, to be replaced with the Ghanaian citizenry - tells a lot.
Unfortunately for the speech-writers, it will be difficult for them to come out and tell the whole world that it was the President's own making. They are forced to take the quinin tablet for the sick man (no malice, please).
The new President of Ghana has exposed not only Ghanaians, but the entire black race to global insults, led by the most confused President America ever elected.