The Rights Alliance feels very petrified by the reaction of some foreign media networks in particular to the unfortunate incident of uncanny coincidences in the inaugural speech of our new President, H E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, with those of some former US Presidents including Bill Clinton and George Walker Bush. Particularly embarrassing is the attempt to ridicule both the President and the Ghanaian people by major international news outlets such as the BBC, CNN, Aljazeera, the New York Times, the Independent and the Guardian, among others.
The Rights Alliance is of the view that attempts by some people to dismiss the gravity of the striking similarities, citing copyright issues that the law may not have been breached considering the age of the original speech authored by US President Woodrow Wilson, is rather lame. While copyright offences differ significantly from plagiarism, the mere fact of the presence of several lines of the original speeches in our President’s inaugural speech, uttered verbatim in most instances, is rather unacceptable, particularly as they were made to sound like the words encapsulated the vision of the new leader.
The Rights Alliance therefore wishes to humbly urge the President, H E Nana Akufo Addo, to not only publicly apologise to both the Ghanaian people and the international community, but also sanction his speech writers and Director of Communication, to serve as a strong deterrent to others who might repeat such a gross display of negligence which has brought him such public embarrassment, in future.
We, however, wish to assure His Excellency the President that we members of the Rights Alliance will heed his call for us all to be citizens and not subjects or spectators, as we work to support his effort to build a more prosperous and progressive nation. It is in this light that we sincerely hope he would heed our call and take the necessary steps to redeem both his image and the country’s as well.
#Long Live the Fourth Republic
#Long Live the Rights Alliance, and
#Long Live Ghana
Signed
Kwaku Badman
(Director of Communications, the Right Alliance)
0266382373
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