Yesterday, Saturday January 7th, shortly following President Akufo Addo’s inauguration speech rumors flew on social media that parts of the president’s speech had been lifted from speeches given by past US Presidents.
Once these rumors were verified and found to be true they gained momentum. Soon after the president’s newly appointment Director of Communications posted a message apologizing for the oversight saying, “It was a complete oversight, and never deliberate.”
This should have ended the entire debacle… in a perfect world, that is. It seems like Ms. Forson wasn’t quite ready to let this sleeping dog lie till she lent her opinion to the fray.
Ms. Forson’s view on the subject seems to be that although plagiarism in a presidential inauguration isn’t something to dismiss as “not a big deal”, it shouldn’t be used to antagonize the newly inaugurated Ghanaian President.
She points out that parading President Akufo Addo’s mistakes just for the sake of spite isn’t a good idea, saying “In the end if this president fails, it’s on us the people because we suffer the consequences.”
Read her full piece below:
Ghana has a new president, who was sworn in yesterday.
At his inauguration the new President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo read a beautiful speech that left many people feeling inspired.
Unfortunately this was short lived as people found that some portions of the speech was plagiarized by the writer.
This was a real embarrassing end to what was a beautiful ceremony.
But as embarrassing as the whole plagiarism incident is, it’s not just on the President, it’s on whoever wrote it and he/she should be dealt with accordingly.
But unfortunately, it is in our nature to blame who ever is in power for anything that people around them do- nothing new here, just the tables turned, very sad.
And let’s not dismiss it as “no big deal” either, it is a very big deal. This is like the declaration of independence and something that will be quoted from as he did others for years to come; and I’m sure even studied in schools as part of his legacy.
The writer was perhaps inspired, and there’s nothing wrong with that, we’ve all on many occasions (I know I have) been inspired by words of people we look up to; but quoting word for word without acknowledgment is dead wrong.
You can love your party and and still be objective; your love won’t shrink because of it.
And not everything is an attack or should be because of who we’re loyal to.
That blind loyalty cost the country on several occasions, and we should know better than to make the same mistake. – ” when you know better, you do better”
And to the new opposition, I get it, I get that you know had the tables been turned the ex president wouldn’t have been given a pass and would have been trolled to filth.
It’s only been a day, we haven’t forgotten and don’t expect you to either; the ruling party was extremely critical of the ex-president and it’s only right you feel that you should do the same.
But this is what happens when people are more invested in their political party than they are the country.
And because of this it becomes almost impossible to have an honest discussion about anything and even hold our leaders accountable because depending on who’s in power, we will find every reason in the book to justify or condemn things they do.
But I refuse to go through another four years of discussing things that should end at “you messed up, own it and move on”.
That’s how we got distracted in the first place, discussing why someone was in a military uniform and posing infront of CNN instead of more important issues.
We need to break the cycle of “you do me I do you”, because I know some of you are just waiting for a slip up of any kind to pounce on.
In the end if this president fails, it’s on us the people because we suffer the consequences.
So whether you voted for Nana or not doesn’t really matter right now, you have four years to vote for whoever you want in power and pray they win.
Until then, this is OUR Ghana and it’s our duty to ensure the success of the government; and this means willing the president to succeed and make good on his promises and anything else that can give us the better Ghana we long for.
So it’s time to roll up our sleeves,get our hands dirty and start working.
We’ve got to be a part of the Ghana we dream of.
Long live Ghana.
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