The Change Begins With Me campaign of the Federal Government of Nigeria has been riddled with controversy ever since several angles and allegations of plagiarism, copy-copy and deceit has come to the fore.
In a new development, the consultant, under the auspices of Fadeyi Associates, who claimed to have pitched the idea to the Honorable Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, only to have it allegedly stolen and rebranded, now claim that they have several pieces of evidence to that effect.
According to Daily Independent:
A new line of evidence Fadeyi associates presented on Wednesday to Independent showed that the logo he presented to the minister was almost the same with the logo that was used as the official logo during the launch by President Buhari.
In addition, the three video drama which Fadeyi and his team alleged were given to the minister all ended with the sound ‘Change Begins With Me’ just like what the government launched.
Fadeyi’s length of drama was one minute exactly like that presented by the minister.
An associate, Emeka Oparah, had expressed his surprise at the development saying, “I cannot …understand why the Federal Government would launch what to me is a Xerox copy of Mr. Fadeyi’s ‘Not in My Country’. Why the duplication? Why the replication? Why not a collaboration?
“Look, there is no need to duplicate efforts or stifle great initiatives. I don’t think it is too late for Alhaji Lai Mohammed to call Akin in for a conversation on how to blend the ideas in the interest of the change agenda, the anti-corruption campaign and the future of Nigeria. It will ridicule the philosophy of the change agenda, if ‘Not in My Country’ is ignored, side-stepped or even copied by a government that seeks to do things different.”