In what appears to be a gale of presidential plagiarisms, President Muhammadu Buhari is enmeshed in a fresh plagiarism scandal that shows him stealing the famous “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody” quote from the late Charles de Gaulle of France.

The quote, which was smuggled into President Buhari’s May 29, 2015 inauguration speech, received a lot of commendation from Nigerians across political and religious divides. The quote immediately went viral and was listed by the BBC as the best quote out of Africa for the year 2015.

Further checks have however revealed that just like Buhari plagiarized Obama’s 2008 victory speech, the “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody” is original to Charles de Gaulle who said “I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone”, while addressing a press conference on May 19, 1958.

Charles de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman. He was the leader of Free France (1940-44) and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–46). In 1958, he founded the Fifth Republic and was elected as the 18th President of France, a position he held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War and his memory continues to influence French politics.Meanwhile, President Buhari on Friday admitted that he stole some lines from Obama’s 2008 victory speech which were inserted into a speech he delivered last week at the official launch of Nigeria’s “Change Begins With Me” campaign.

A statement by the Nigerian presidency blamed the intellectual property theft on an “overzealous staff” and vowed tomete out disciplinary actions against the staff, an unnamed deputy director in Nigeria’s Federal Civil Service.

Nusaf:
Even if he quoted the said expression, when has that become an issue? People should go and read their books and stop disturbing the public with words whose meaning, they are not sure of. What exactly do u mean by plagiarism? Look up the meaning of that word once again pls.

abokibuhari:

how this ani ma take do project that's if you go school sef, at least mention the person way get the quote(referencing)

chieveboy:
When your father was toasting your mother, he stole the quote "I love you" from Romeo

dustmalik:
This is the reason I stopped commenting on this section. This can't be termed as plagiarism because it's not word for word or sentence for sentence. Calling this plagiarism is like saying some specific people have exclusivity to certain English words, which is the most stupid way of reasoning.