A website belonging to Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress has published a plagiarised manifesto on its website, a check by The Guardian shows.
But the party’s spokesman Lanre Issa-Onilu said the website was hacked by people who have “evil plots”.
The first paragraph of the power supply section of the party’s Next Level agenda published on apc.com.ng showed remarkable similarities to the content published on several other websites.
“Assertively pontificate long-term high-impact testing procedures wiProgressively synergize timely action items and business “outside the box” thinking. Distinctively foster best-of-breed markets before collaborative schemas. Authoritatively embrace tactical potentialities vis-a-vis low-risk high-yield architectures. Completely administrate robust testing procedures vis-a-vis dynamic testing procedures. Globally fabricate functional intellectual capital for B2B e-services,” the supposed APC manifesto reads in part:
In fact, the section begins with the statement, “Our first priority is keeping America safe and secure,” which indicates that it was copied and not edited before it was published.
The website, which claims to be the “Official Website of All Progressives Congress (APC)”, was first registered on February 7, 2013, and was updated on February 7, 2018, according to whois.net.
The official registrant of the website is listed as All Progressives Congress, its admin named as Shola Erogbogbo and contact email address is listed as [email protected].
Whois.net lists the billing address of the website as 16, Bissau Street, Zone 5, Abuja, billing name as All Progressives Congress and the sponsoring registrar as Web4Africa, a South African information technology company.
Although the website listed in the Twitter bio of the official Twitter handle of the party is officialapcng.com, it is, however, not working when The Guardian checked on Saturday morning. When visited, the site redirected to a download option for an unnamed folder.
A media website developer told The Guardian that that particular website may have been hacked or the server has a malware.
“It is very possible that site has been hacked or that server has a malware attack,” Elijah Bello said.
“It is also possible that the site of creating a new site has been giving to someone who does not his job.”
This is not the first time the president will be accused of plagiarism.
In September 2016, a part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Change Begins With Me” speech, delivered at the launching of a social initiative against corruption and other vices, was copied from former American president Barack Obama’s 2008 victory speech.
“It was observed that the similarities between a paragraph in President Obama’s 2008 victory speech…are too close to be passed as coincidence,” presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement, adding that an unnamed “overzealous” speechwriter responsible for the plagiarism will face “appropriate sanction”.
The “Change Begins With Me” campaign itself was allegedly appropriated by the minister of information Lai Mohammed.
