Plagiarism: It was needless to respond to Murtala in Parliament; Ignore him, I didn't plagiarise — Ursula Owusu

Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation has refuted accusations of plagiarism levelled against her by Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, during a parliamentary briefing on the country's network challenges.

Murtala accused the Minister of directly lifting statements from the Nigerian Communication Commission's website for her briefing, labelling it as unacceptable behaviour for a Minister appearing before Parliament.

He said, “Parliament is a house of records and when Ministers are to appear before Parliament to provide information of a very important issue like the internet interruption we are facing, the least we expect from the Minister is to tell us something that is not original.

“When the minister was making the statement, I went to the Nigerian Communication Commission website, and I realised that many of the things the minister said were taken directly from a statement which was issued by the Nigerian Communication Commission word to word and I really think it is just unacceptable.

“But some of us are not surprised, H.E. the president, in his first inaugural address, plagiarised four American presidents.”

Ursula Owusu Ekuful addressed the issue during an interview on Peace FM's morning 'Kokrokoo' morning show, describing Murtala's claims as baseless.

"I just realised he didn't know what he was talking about, so there was no need for me to give him a response in Parliament.

“Sometimes you have to overlook some of these things; probably he said it in jest. I didn't think it was something that needed to be given the oxygen of publicity, so I ignored him... I didn't plagiarise," the Minister stated during the interview.