In an unprecedented move in the history of Nigeria’s political campaign, The All progressive congress, APC and rejected its own logo after forensic analysis showed that it had plagiarized the work of an Associate professor in a US university.
Despite being the only logo of the campaign and tweeted by none other person but Buhari himself
The spokesman for the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Festus Keyamo, SAN, in an interview on the Africa Independent Television, on Tuesday, claimed the logo was designed by supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Despite Keyamo’s dismissal of the ‘Next Level’ logo, which had been retweeted by the Presidency’s official Twitter handle, the logo could still be seen on the President’s Twitter page as of 7:48 pm on Tuesday.
There have been allegations on social media that the logo of President Buhari’s Next level campaign was copied from Winthrop University’s Rex Institute in the United States.
Buhari launched the Next Level document which contains his administration’s projections for the next four years on Sunday, November 18, 2018.
Rex Institute’s Next Level program
A quick look at the Rex Institute’s website shows something similar to that Next Level logo that was used in Buahri’s campaign document.
The Institute’s website states that “The Rex Institute is a service-oriented organization within Winthrop’s Richard W. Riley College of Education that serves, facilitates, and supports faculty and College of Education initiatives that involve internal and external collaboration, partnership, and outreach.”
It also states that the purpose of its Next Level program is to:
(1) Shepherd the Agenda for Education in a Democracy.
(2) Build and maintain the Winthrop University-School Partnership Network.
(3) Foster collaborative inquiry and teaching.
(4) Promote ongoing professional learning for faculty and community partners.
Reno Omokri raises alarm
Reno Omokri, the former new media aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan had earlier raised an alarm that the Next Level logo was copied from Dr. Kelly M. Costner, an Associate Professor and Next Level’s Project Coordinator.
Omokri made the allegation on Twitter on Monday, November 19, 2018.
He said “@MBuhari spent ₦83 million promoting his #NextLevel agenda on the front pages of ALL Nigeria’s major newspapers, but forgot to tell those papers that he stole the Next Level from Associate Professor Kelly Costner. I urge all #LazyNigerianYouths to retweet.”
Change Begins With Me incident
In 2016, Buhari was also accused of copying part of former US President Barack Obama’s speech which he read when he won the elections in 2008.
The Change Begins With Me campaign was launched on September 8, 2016.
See the lines that were reportedly copied below:
“A new spirit of service, of sacrifice, of patriotism, of responsibility” – Obama.
“A new spirit of responsibility, of service, of patriotism and sacrifice” – Buhari
“Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long” – Obama.
“Let us all resolve to pitch in and work hard and look after, not only ourselves, but one another. We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long” – Buhari.
