Apology 001

Village rag of ruse

This morning, I came upon a malicious false accusation that was made against a friend on Twitter to the effect that he was allegedly recorded on video assaulting a woman and swearing at her.

On observing the video, it was clear that neither the man assaulting the woman nor the voice of the perpetrator was my friend, the accent was American, his is British-Nigerian. That this video appeared on one of the more odious vehicles of invective and the worst of Nigerian journalistic standards was at first instructive, the text dripped with malice, it could not be overlooked.

As it transpired, Nigeria being a country in the rat race of keeping and settling scores, someone decided to publish this malign atrocity and then continued with commentary that excoriated my friend in the most uncharitable terms before proceeding to church.

Malicious and atrocious

Meanwhile, anyone who had any idea of who my friend was had already seen this hatchet job for what it was, the antecedents of the village rag masquerading as an online newspaper indicated that the act was deliberate to cause injury and harm to the name and reputation of my friend.

Whilst, engagement on Twitter can both be robust and virulent, there are times when even my friend might have exceeded the bounds of decency. In the snake pit of Nigerian commentary, the search for gentlemen can be futile as to be impossible. However, that should not excuse the abuse of platforms and expression to denigrate anyone, that applies to both my friend and anyone else.

Address the issue at hand

I am not here to keep the record of longstanding conflicts between personalities on Social Media, however, I can as occasion allows when I am observing my timeline on Twitter engage in the discourse or the debate as the opportunity comes. This morning presented such an opportunity and for that particular act, I walked in with the clear intention of defending my friend from that particular smear and address all who colluded in propagating the odium.

For some people, they might seek moral equivalences to justify that atrocity, it does not excuse this particular one I decided to address and the forum is open for others to address grievances they might have with other issues they feel so strongly about. The idea that one should help them fly their own flags, whilst understandable is neither a duty nor an obligation.

I have on many occasions called out friend, acquaintance, stranger and worse on general issues, I am nobody’s surrogate, I work as an independent mind on the matters I choose to address and never as a policeman seeking to impute offence at every possible opportunity.

It was a hatchet job

The backlash was fierce and unrelenting, with that came a conditionally grudging apology which some considered a full-hearted apology, I was having none of it. Eventually, the village rag pulled down that rotten hatchet job, which it was and appeared to apologise. The apologies were an apology of an apology in and of themselves.

I say it was a rotten hatchet job, because if it wasn’t, the story would have been edited to address the matter of Violence Against Women, which one of the protagonists tried to use to deflect the opprobrium for his perfidy. It got to a point that I found myself having to write an Idiot’s Guide to Apology and I labelled it Apology 001 because to have given it Apology 101 would have made it impossible for some to understand as a very advanced course in appropriate restitution.

The Idiot’s Guide: Apology 001

The Idiot’s Guide appears below and I have really not seen anything that resembles an apology on the matter. Just because you dislike a person does not mean you cannot stand for right in support of that person, that is what constitutes having a value system and principles. It is left to us to decide if past hurt is an excuse for allowing injustice and worse to thrive in our midst.

Apology 001: A regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure.

Apology 001: An apology requires first an expression of regret; that expression cannot be conditional.

Apology 001: An expression of regret cannot be prefaced with the conditional if, because that invalidates the acknowledgement of error.

Apology 001: An apology must stand on its own, it must be full, unreserved, sincere, honest and final.

Apology 001: An apology must fully repudiate all the errors and claims that caused offence. For example; I am sorry for falsely accusing ...

Apology 001: If an apology is not grudging and deemed honest, it will be obvious to all and the offended will receive it gracefully.

Apology 001: Until we grasp the fundamentals of giving a good apology, we cannot advance to the Apology 101 course. :)

Nigeria: More Questions For Tobore Mit Ovuorie - The Human Trafficking Undercover Journalist

I have many easy questions

This would be the fourth blog I am writing about Tobore Mit Ovuorie’s expose on Human Trafficking published simultaneously on Premium Times in Nigeria and ZAM Chronicle in the Netherlands.

Blog - Opinion: My Views About That Human Trafficking Exclusive

Blog - Pa Ikhide Unravels That Despicable Human Trafficking Yarn

Blog - The Dying Profession Of Journalism in Nigeria

I am writing again because the more that Premium Times has put out in attack, defence and evidence seems to raise more questions that needs the person of Tobore Mit Ovuorie to answer, clearly and unequivocally.

One is now of the opinion that the human trafficking probably passes the plausibility test, in that everything she wrote about does happen in the human trafficking world, but it has consistently failed to pass the muster of a credibility test for the reporter and all her handlers.

Please answer correctly

Below, I have a list of questions, I would want Tobore Mit Ovuorie to address with a greater attention to journalistic rigour, truth, facts and honesty.

Scenario: Tobore Ovuorie's friend died in 1999 after being a victim of human trafficking to Europe. Tobore who is 33 now, was 18 then.

Question: How old was her friend when she was trafficked and in what year?

Question: For how long was her friend in Europe before she returned to Nigeria with the AIDS defining illness of Karposi Sarcoma?

Scenario: The average time from HIV to full-blown AIDS without any ARV medication is around 4 to 10 years.

Wikipedia - HIV disease progression rates

Question: When did her friend discover she had HIV and consequently AIDS? If anonymity is waived, what was her name and who else knew of this story of her trafficking all through to her death?

Scenario: Besides the general criminal activity to do with human trafficking, Tobore witnessed two murders.

Question: Why is she not leading the police to where she attended the Abuja party which she left feeling very ill that she had to attend hospital?

Question: Why is she not taking the police to all the other significant places she mentioned in her report?

Scenario: Oghogho had a number luxurious cars and houses she had built or was building in her home town.

Question: Did Tobore forget to note the car numbers as an investigative journalist?

Question: Where is Oghogho’s home town amongst others she must have had conversations with who had progressed up the human trafficking chain?

Question: In all the places Tobore was taken to, was she blindfolded?

Premium Times - Human Trafficking Expose: PREMIUM TIMES, Critics and the Limit of Falsehood

Scenario: Tobore attended a NAPTIP Human Trafficking conference after her ordeal. She supposedly submitted her report to Premium Times before the conference.

Question: Did she share her experiences at the conference?

Question: If not, why is her report similar to stories shared at the conference?

Question: If Tobore was so driven by her friend's experience 14 years before, where else did she share this compelling issue before she was commissioned for this human trafficking expose?

Question: How did Tobore get to be selected for this mission?

Scenario: The risk analysis was atrocious, she really could have lost her life.

Question: So, after that heinous ordeal and Tobore's rescue in the Republic of Benin, she was able to recover so completely from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder under casual medical observation in less than a month to attend a conference reliving the details of her experience?

Question: What has happened to Reece Adanwenon's Facebook page with which Tobore communicated with ZAM Chronicles?

Question: Why did Tobore not use her Facebook page instead or had she forgotten her password by the time she arrived in the Republic of Benin?

Scenario: Reece Adanwenon who was supposed to facilitate the rescue of Tobore in the Republic of Benin had never met Tobore, yet Tobore was able to recognise her from what she could recollect from Reece's Facebook profile.

Scenario: However, when Reece's Facebook profile was communicating with ZAM Chronicle, there was no picture of Reece on the profile.

Question: What happened?

Scenario: Tobore's head was shaved by the ritualists in November, just days before she escaped in Benin Republic.

Question: Where are the pictures of the condition she was in when she was rescued?

Question: Where are pictures of her at the NAPTIP conference since she appears to like hobnobbing with important people?

Question: Did she use a wig during the time it took for her hair to grow back?

Scenario: Surely, after suffering such a humiliation she as an investigative reporter cannot have lost the significance of taking pictures of her recovery.

Question: Why after her rescue with reference to the text messages she constantly exchanged with Premium Times personnel did she wait weeks to inform them she was safe when it appears she was ready to immediately contact ZAM Chronicle in Amsterdam?

Amateurish recklessness

The lax modus operandi put in for this Human Trafficking expose beggars belief. If the text messages she was sending were discovered by the traffickers, there was enough for a death sentence in her communications.

They used no code words, no call signs, the power distance index was very prominent that it was clear she was reporting back to someone and her boss was giving instructions. This escapade was so amateurish to be in any way believable.

With ZAM Chronicle involved, you wonder what they really know of undercover work especially in cases where a life or many lives could have been at great risk.

Too convenient and sadly expedient

Finally, it is all too convenient that critical evidence that could give the real truth to this story was lost, like why she had not immediately transmitted pictures, conversations and much else for most of the time she had her mobile phone. At worst, there should have been an electronic dead drop to collect all this data for the use of the expose.

In the end, we only have Tobore’s word and the threatened reputations of Premium Times and ZAM Chronicle through obfuscation, bluster, bullying and ad hominem attacks to go by, the rest in text messages and Facebook posts is hardly independently verifiable. It is a crying shame.

You cannot trust this

If Tobore was exposed to such evil and unconscionable human traffickers with connections to people in high places in Nigeria and abroad, she and her handlers must be recklessly bold, careless, and utterly irresponsible to reveal her identity where she must daily be at risk of being apprehended and assassinated.

I am sorry, it is time for Premium Times to cut loose of this travesty or both it and its reputation would sink with it, considering the reporter they are supporting has hardly been with the outfit for 6 months, the level of naïveté demonstrated by the seasoned journalists at Premium Times is befuddling to the point of bafflement.

The Dying Profession Of Journalism in Nigeria

The draft not getting to the craft

You begin to wonder what is happening to the journalism profession in Nigeria, with the many unfortunate events like badly filed reports that make no sense or serve no purpose than act as space fillers of incomprehensibility.

Then the Shibboleths of Nigerianese that have become the foundations of Nigerian English following none of the rules of common English grammar.

Where we are spared running the gauntlet of inscrutable English, it is verbosity that leaves you marooned as a castaway from context and reason as to why the writer deigned to put pen to paper.

Forget the fine art of fact-checking, proofreading or spellchecking and you end up with a slurry of a jumble of words produced by any fingered primate typing feverishly at a keyboard in the miraculous hope of producing a magnificent volume to upstage the works of Shakespeare.

Whimsical with the unethical

Then we move on to the ethical issues of journalism, where some are mercenaries for hire ready to plant a fabrication to favour a cause, a patron or some bias, many refusing to allow objectivity to get in the way of sensationalism as we have our focus diverted by the bold and screaming headlines of yellow journalism.

Plagiarism is rife, the lack of attribution, reference, acknowledgement or recognition of originality as the race for circulation and any other pursuit means everyone and anyone is trampled upon without any hope of an apology or restitution for the misuse of copyright or sources of material.

Which brings me to the most recent scramble to the nadir of this profession, the fictional construct of a story about human trafficking, supported and sponsored by heretofore reputable organisations, at least we have been deluded into thinking they had any semblance of integrity until now.

We’ve been had too many times

This made me post a comment on Facebook about the supposed investigative epaulets of Tobore Mit Ovuorie.

Blog - Pa Ikhide Unravels That Despicable Human Trafficking Yarn

“That girl would be the complete ruin of any semblance of journalism in Nigeria as newspapers exacerbate this continual fiction of every undercover story appearing to endanger her life.

She has found an emotional and sentimental switch on the Nigerian psyche, speak of endangered life, and we almost always lose the ability to reason and question as we begin to sympathise and empathise - we have been blackmailed into losing our rational minds.”

Indeed, she appears to have found what we as Nigerians are too susceptible to, our lack of curiosity in the face of consuming activity.

We’ve lost our bearings

Our senses stimulated by macabre, bizarre and atrocious stories, pictures and videos that drags our humanity into inurement to the sufferings of others as we feast on what passes for news when it is mostly gossip, rumour and uncorroborated events.

We race so well ahead of the truth and the facts that when they eventually catch up with us, the damage is done as we wait for the next heroin high of another sorry tale of life in Nigeria.

You then ask, who would rescue this noble profession of journalism from the dregs of reprehensible, lying and unscrupulous purveyors of the contemptible? Who?

Pa Ikhide Unravels That Despicable Human Trafficking Yarn

Trust, but verify

One thing we must never lose regardless of our experiences and how we age is our sense of curiosity, a questioning mind, a precociousness that is adventurous, the boldness to challenge the conventional and the ability to maintain a modicum of healthy scepticism.

This is where I am wont to commend Pa Ikhide (Ikhide R. Ikheloa) who has singlehandedly blown apart the foundation of that human trafficking story supposedly written by Tobore Mit Ovuorie for the Premium Times Nigeria in collusion with ZAM Chronicle in the Netherlands. Much of this discussion has been on Pa Ikhide’s Facebook page.

Blog - Opinion: My Views About That Human Trafficking Exclusive

No one is disputing the truth in the criminality and the atrocity of human trafficking where lives are wasted in petty street thievery, sex trade and organ harvesting, but one should be sure of who has experienced this situation and who is telling the story.

Ghost-writing is no crime

As it has transpired, from Pa Ikhide’s investigations of Tobore Mit Ovuorie and her social media activities, when she was supposedly undercover being trafficked in 2013 and the many questions left unanswered with many of us being carried away on the sentimentality of the narrative to the detriment of the veracity of storyteller, we can very well assume we have been conned.

I do not think Tobore Mit Ovuorie would have been less celebrated if she had ghost-written the gory tales of people who escaped the clutches of those rotten human traffickers, but to have constructed a fantastic thriller of a fictional tale around herself as the main actor in a drama where she was at risk of losing her life is not only dishonest and contemptible, words really do fail me.

Reputations like dung

The supporting cast that appeared to give credence to this travesty are no less beyond repudiation and excoriation. Premium Times with its many award-winning laurels was ready to stake its well-earned reputation on giving this fantasy a veneer of truthfulness by attacking sceptics when it should have addressed the questions, sombrely, honestly and honourably.

ZAM Chronicle with its under-the-railroad offices in Amsterdam has not only been dishonourable, but lent itself to propagating the stereotype of African savagery whilst pretending to be more concerned for the dignity and reputation of Africans in their ambivalence between revelation and concealment – nothing could be more sickening than false empathy.

Thank you, Pa Ikhide

Again, we must thank Pa Ikhide who did not wane or shrink in his tenacity to get to the bottom of this matter, when a majority of us had been taken for a long rocky emotional ride that deprived the real victims of human trafficking of their voice and their story, because some unscrupulous, dishonest, reprehensible, ignominious and detestable journalists and newspapers had an eye for self-serving awards to the exclusion of others.

Shame on all of them and for those whose stories you stole for your selfish ends, you are no better than the human traffickers, their blood is on your heads as it is on the heads of the traffickers. Shame on you.

Decade Blogs - Roundup III

I’m still here

We have just completed three weeks of my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series, 21 blogs commemorating my Decade of Blogging. Each blog that I have reviewed, edited and written an introduction for has offered a showcase into stories told by people with a voice so unique, yet one we can all relate to.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

I decided to stop taking blog contributions after I received 35 entries and I sent a personal message to the others who were not able to redeem their promises that it would have to be for another time, whilst thanking them for just considering and accepting the challenge.

Yet, I have managed to post four personal blogs on friendship, substandard drugs, Christmas greetings and journalistic diplomacy, I’m still here.

Then again

The theme that seems to define the third week is the significance of writing, in helping to understand our humanity. Veterans and new comers to blogging displaying talent and insight, I am so glad to share.

Here, for your pleasure are three weeks of Decade Blogs. To everyone who has honoured me in finding time to write for #YourBlogOnMyBlog, my thanks and more. I would find the words of appreciation and gratitude, eventually and they would still not be enough.

Decade Blogs – Week 3

Decade Blogs - Sira Sokari - Writing is the Liberator

Decade Blogs - Abubakar A. Musa - Challenging the humanity in us

Decade Blogs - Japheth J. Omojuwa - The Power of Purpose and Persistence

Decade Blogs - Mister Mobility - Not all those who wander are lost

Decade Blogs - Annie Emmanuel - Loyal To A Fault And Daring To Do

Decade Blogs - Akin Oyebode - How Will You Measure Your Life?

Decade Blogs - Ayo Oyalowo - What exactly are we looking for?

Decade Blogs – Week 2

Decade Blogs - Monike Charles-Binitie - Taking the leap

Decade Blogs - 'Seyi Shimoshi - On Faith, Fiction and Friendship

Decade Blogs - Raymond Inkabi - Ten Years Of Blogging

Decade Blogs - Blossom Nnodim - The Guardians of the Future

Decade Blogs - Pearl Ijeoma Ezeokeke - The Employer Atrocities of She

Decade Blogs - Ikhide R. Ikheloa - This life, London, tribes, and the Internet

Decade Blogs - Bisi Alimi - 10 Years of Blogging

Decade Blogs – Week 1

Blog - Decade Blogs - Babatunde Rosanwo - The Market‏

Blog - Decade Blogs - Waffarian - Just Another Day

Blog - Decade Blogs - Emeka John Okoye - Welding Relations

Blog - Decade Blogs - Chikere Ezeh - Exhuming Blogs of Old

Blog - Decade Blogs - Nkem Ivara - The Power Of Words

Blog - Decade Blogs - Tolu Oloruntoba - Royalties at the end of a river

Blog - Decade Blogs - Feyi Fawehinmi - Daddy 2.0

Opinion: Please don't call the President a liar

I cry for our journalism

Over the last few weeks, I have concentrated on managing the blogs posted to commemorate my Decade of Blogging. It does not mean there was nothing else to write about.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Now, I touch on a topic that I have covered in various ways pertaining to journalism in Nigeria, from poor copy editing, through faulty terminologies to plagiarism.

A newspaper reported yesterday that the President ‘lied’ when referencing how his off-the-cuff Christmas speech was related to the public.

The responsibility of the press

The substance of the issue is beside the point, but this goes down to one simple scenario, if the press is to inform, engage, investigate, collaborate and serve as a guardian of democracy giving voice to the people, it has to get more sophisticated with the responsibility it has to disseminate the news.

The President in terms is somewhat a divisive figure who excites passionate sycophancy to intemperate antagonism, a welcome dartboard with a big bull’s-eye for criticism that his coterie of advisors and acolytes have perfected the art of being under siege.

He is not perfect, but that does not make him a devil, and much as many may not like him and individually some might excoriate and ridicule him, the press should hold themselves to a higher standard of engagement.

In many cases, the only way we would ever get to hear the President’s views on any issue would be through newspapers that have found a way to building a reputation for cutting-edge reportage and the use of language with the finesse of nuance and the ability to convey truth and fact as objectivity as possible.

Tact and leeway in reportage

More pertinent, they should give authorities when presented with certain facts that leeway to reconsider or restate their views as each engagement sheds more light of the backstory of any issue being debated on or reported on.

To call the President a liar is seriously antagonistic and aggressively reckless, even if the accuser is in the right. It gives the President no options apart from a descent to opprobrium, disgrace and dishonour. As the person of the President is impugned the office of the President is brought into disrepute and then what respect can we accord our leadership if they are under the cosh of dishonourable conduct.

At worst, the press should have suggested the President misstated the facts or might have been wrongly briefly, in which case, the office of the President might have had the option with review what the President said and retract the reported ‘lie’ with necessarily losing face.

An unfortunate step

To confront the President with the accusation that he lied is as good as asking for his scalp, the press might have won the battle for that setting but would have lost the bigger war, the war to make the press have the necessary in-roads into the system to ensure the public are adequately informed.

However, if the press does think that resorting to ambush tactics and mob justice of the pen with a public journalistic lynching is the best approach to things, much more is expected of juvenile delinquents and this unfortunate descent into disagreeable communication would simply polarise rather than serve the greater interests of Nigeria.

Indeed, certain of the press need to act tough and appear impermeable to obsequiousness to the powerful, and separate themselves from the bought up personnel who are instruments of patronage and the wielding of influence for propaganda ends.

It does not excuse the need to tact, for finesse, for nuance, for the understated and the effective use of language in analogy or metaphor to convey serious matters without a thuggish disposition.

Retract for him to restate

I would suggest that the press retract their accusation that the President lied and restate their case with a bit of deference and allowance, it would give the President some leeway either to reinforce or restate, there evidence provided would then be weighed to determine with the truth is.

I think the word I am looking for is diplomacy and the press can use a bit of diplomatic language and still get the job done without looking like a bull set lose in a china shop. That I have to write this blog is unfortunate, but very necessary.

Plagiarism: An apology from someone with a stake in The Nigerian Telegraph

A result of sorts – An apology

After a long day of making the case about my blog being plagiarised by The Nigerian Telegraph, I finally got someone with a stake in the newspaper to engage me and chat about the issue.

The apology for ‘our mess’ is what makes the apology worth its weight.

@TunjiAndrews Before I accept this apology, do you have a vested interest in @TelegraphNG to arrogate that responsibility?
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

The apology came from the Finance Editor of the Nigerian Telegraph.

@forakin @TelegraphNG :-) Yes, you may want to view my profile. I may not know who did it, but, its our mess
— Tunji Andrews (@TunjiAndrews) November 4, 2013

Our Twitter exchange appears below, and though I asked to use our conversation in a blog, his view was if I must. I guess I should because if I make an accusation of plagiarism and receive an apology, it is only right to blog about it.

Obviously, along the lines of Do The Needful when it comes to plagiarism, I do expect The Nigerian Telegraph to take down that article. I created a Storify of some of the tweets, titled, Closing the loop on plagiarism.

It is serious

Along the way, I was admonished, maybe that is a strong word, advised to forgive and forget – No, you do not forgive plagiarism and it is very difficult to forget because this goes to the heart of the principles that underpin and undergird an organisation and the personalities that run it; it is a matter of honour and of integrity.

However, I am ready to accept the apology and the promise that it never happen again because the person who made the apology is someone I respect for his views and opinions on Twitter. He is the Finance Editor of The Nigerian Telegraph; I believe he also appreciates the reputational risk of being associated, albeit remotely with an organisation tainted with the proven allegation of plagiarism.

The Twitter Conversation

I believe I used the word ‘Plagiarism’ fairly and justly, and I am ready to move on. The Twitter trail of that event appears below.

My first observation

I cannot believe my eyes, my news reader just picked up something from a Nigerian newspaper, I've been plagiarised but it's disappeared.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Then I asked

Why would anyone choose to plagiarise Akin Akintayo? Don't they know him?
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

After which I wrote this blog and asked for an apology

Plagiarism: The Unforgivable Face of Nigerian Journalism http://t.co/gPtfkCShUn Dear @TelegraphNG I expect an apology.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Then I broadcast the tweet

I rarely do this, but if we are to get standards to matter more in Nigerian journalism, we have to start somewhere.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

@IfeanyiUddin The media is probably the most public forum of interaction, if change starts there, the information gets to it the audience.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

@IfeanyiUddin It does, but even a little voice in the wilderness has some purpose, I hope.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

@IfeanyiUddin I mean, we should give voice to the change we want regardless of how small our voices are.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

@forakin No problem there. But we must see the limits of the possible!
— Ifeanyi UDDIN (@IfeanyiUddin) November 4, 2013

When I originally wrote the blog, I thought is was written for The Nigerian Telegraph by a Chidi Okoye, but later found that it was signed by the Editor and online at this URL http://telegraphng.com/2013/11/culture-impunity/

This is just reprehensible, I left a comment on @TelegraphNG about their plagiarism and they have refused to publish it.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Then it became a cause

.@TelegraphNG Should not let their newspaper become a cause, I have been blogging for 10 years, I have a good Internet footprint.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Many hours later, after posting a comment on that article, which they moderated but never published, I returned to make my case.

I accused @TelegraphNg of plagiarism this morning with proofs, they are still tweeting but I have still not been acknowledged.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

This represents the societal malaise in Nigeria. The powerful act with impunity and the masses cry themselves hoarse getting no justice.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Then I got this response - What is the issue?

@TunjiAndrews This is the issue http://t.co/gPtfkCShUn They lifted parts of my blog and presented it as theirs. @TelegraphNG
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

It got an apology, but I needed to know who it was coming from.

@TunjiAndrews Before I accept this apology, do you have a vested interest in @TelegraphNG to arrogate that responsibility?
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

He is the Finance Editor for the Nigerian Telegraph, I do consider him a friend on Twitter.

@forakin @TelegraphNG :-) Yes, you may want to view my profile. I may not know who did it, but, its our mess
— Tunji Andrews (@TunjiAndrews) November 4, 2013

@TunjiAndrews I see, I had not checked your profile recently. Am I allowed to use your responses in a blog? @TelegraphNG
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

I then asked to use the exchanges we had in a blog, at least to say I have received an apology.

@forakin @TelegraphNG If you must.
— Tunji Andrews (@TunjiAndrews) November 4, 2013

@TunjiAndrews Well, if I make an accusation and have received communication, I guess it is best to close the circle. @TelegraphNG
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

@TunjiAndrews My investigation fingers a Chidi Okoye. I don't know if he is a @TelegraphNG engagement.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

We concluded the conversation thus:

@TunjiAndrews That is fine by me, I consider you a friend, I asked for an apology, that is the least I wanted from @TelegraphNG
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Do The Needful; That means after the apology, restitute by taking that article down.

This is a promise.

@forakin @TelegraphNG Thank you for this. I will see to it that it doesn't ever happen again with you or any one else
— Tunji Andrews (@TunjiAndrews) November 4, 2013

@forakin @TelegraphNG Big word sir. What does this word mean 'Plagiarsm'? :-)
— Tunji Andrews (@TunjiAndrews) November 4, 2013

I use the word 'Plagiarism' fairly and justly.

@TunjiAndrews I don't use the word 'Plagiarism' lightly, but I use it fairly and justly. :-) @TelegraphNG
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) November 4, 2013

Plagiarism: The Unforgivable Face of Nigerian Journalism

Update - Later

I eventually received an apology in the evening – [The Apology Blog]

Update

At first, I gave the Nigerian Telegraph the benefit of the doubt thinking my blog was plagiarised by someone writing for them, but now I have found the story Culture of Impunity published by the Editor without attribution. This is unacceptable. The rest of the article is as originally written apart from a new graphic at the end of this blog.

Reading me elsewhere

I would not know if it was a pang of conscience of the writer or the eagle-eyed editorial team of the Nigerian Telegraph that decided to pull a story titled Culture of Impunity written by one Chidi Okoye, but I have evidence than my material has been plagiarised.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog titled, #StellaGate: Do The Needful song, this morning going through my news feeds of Nigerian newspapers, I happened upon the ‘Culture of Impunity’ article, and I could see my words jump back at me and I know I never syndicated my piece nor gave anyone permission to use it.

This is plagiarism

I followed the link and found it was dead, at least to check if any attributions, acknowledgements or references were made to the source material on my blog, but I could find no such link. I can safely assume this was blatant plagiarism.

Google Search defines Plagiarism as “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.”

To prove my point, I searched for a section of text on Google and it did present the fact that the text had appeared on Nigerian Telegraph and this at least five hours before my search according to my newsreader.

The evidence

This is what I searched for, “After numberless claims and counterclaims from many government agencies with none of the at least five stories lining up” and much I have had issues with Nigerian journalism, this is no doubt a new low and a low blow, a real shame indeed.

I will let the graphics attached do the talking.

This is from my Feedly newsreader where I discovered at the end of the first paragraph that the text looked familiar. It was written by Chidi Okoye for the Nigerian Telegraph.

This proves that the text fragment that I searched for with its unique phraseology and punctuation did appear on the Nigerian Telegraph website. Mine at least 17 hours before this, if we compare timings on my newsreader and this result from Google.

Do the needful

The graphic below shows the sections edited or lifted directly from my blog. I am first embarrassed for The Nigerian Telegraph, a new news media outfit that I have followed from their inception, and I expect an apology from them for this unfortunate incident.

The page on the Nigerian Telegraph with URL and authored by the Editor.