Alleged plagiarism: Minister threatens to sue newspaper

26-09-2016

 

The Minister of Informa­tion and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has threatened to institute legal action against the Independ­ent Newspaper over alleged plagiarism.

He said the paper had pub­lished that the title of the Feder­al Government’s national reori­entation programme, “Change Begins With Me,” was stolen.

In a letter to the manage­ment of the media organisation, Mr. Oludare Falana of Falana and Falana’s Chambers, on be­half of the minister, asked the paper to retract its publication of September 15, 2016 which al­leged that the Federal Govern­ment spent the sum of N3.4 bil­lion on its national orientation programme titled: “Change Be­gins With Me,” campaign.

The letter reads in part: “We are counsel to Alhaji Lai Mo­hammed, the Honourable Min­ister of Information and Cul­ture of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on whose behalf and instructions we write this letter.

“Our attention has been drawn to your highly libellous statement published and cir­culated in Volume 14, No. 208 of the 15 September, 2016 edi­tion of your newspaper with the screaming head line, “Change Begins With Me,” launched by President Muhammadu Buha­ri on Thursday, 8th September, 2016 was stolen.

“Having damaged our cli­ent’s hard-earned reputation by your action, we have his in­struction to demand a retrac­tion of your publication with­in seven days of the receipt of this letter,” Falana said.