Akufo-Addo should have resigned after 2017 inaugural speech plagiarism - NDC man

A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Bernard Oduro Takyi, has lambasted President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for what he describes as a breach of academic and intellectual integrity.

According to Bernard Oduro Takyi, in most of president public speeches, he presented the works and ideas of others as his own without properly acknowledging them.

Speaking in an interview on Onua FM, March 20, 2023; Bernard Oduro Takyi said President Akufo-Addo should have resigned after plagiarising his inaugural speech on January 7, 2017.

“Don’t forget his first inaugural speech, 7 January 2017, he plagiarized, and if is any country that believes in democracy, he should have resigned.

“So, the very day the president plagiarized his speech, a lot of speech analyzers said that he was bound to fail because, you see, words are not expensive to get, so if you can’t craft your own words but people’s ideas that you will steal without acknowledging them, then it means you can steal the country’s money.

“If combining words becomes difficult for you, then how can you manage the economy?" he asked.

“Ghanaians didn’t even realize because on his first day in office, he stole something …so, there was no evidence that he will take Ghana anywhere," he stressed.

Oduro Takyi used American president Joe Biden's case as an example, saying that when he was campaigning to be the Democratic Party's flagbearer in the 1980s, he was cited for plagiarism and dropped out of the race until Obama made him his running mate two decades later.

“In 1985, Joe Biden who is now the American president plagiarized just a sentence … he was supposed to be president at that time but that delayed him until recently.

“So, if Ghana is a country that believes in democracy, on 7 January 2017 when the president plagiarized, he should have stepped down straight,” he added.

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AM/SARA