Our priority is “keeping America safe and secure” – Buhari’s party manifesto states

General elections in Nigeria is slated for February 16 and things are already heating up between the two main political parties – the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

As it’s generally known and expected, political parties, prior to elections, release their manifestos to the general public and voters detailing their intended policies as well as plans for effective governance should the electorate choose them to handle the affairs of the nation.

In this regard, a carefully outlined and well thought out manifesto void of any controversies whatsoever goes a very long way in painting a good picture of the party to the electorate and also shows how serious the party truly is.

In a very funny but rather embarrassing situation, President Muhammadu Buhari’s APC party allegedly uploaded a heavily plagiarized manifesto on its official website prioritizing the United States of America instead of Nigeria under their Power Supply section.

The sub-headline, in the since-deleted manifesto, which read “Our first priority is keeping America safe and secure”, appeared to have its content heavily copied from some websites, according to Punch Nigeria.

Responding to the incident, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Lanre Issa-Onilu, in a press release on Saturday claimed the APC website had been hacked, Punch Nigeria further reported.

“Our attention has just been drawn to the fact that the APC’s official website, apc.com.ng has been hacked with unauthorised content posted on our pages.

“I have instructed that the site be taken down. Steps are underway to clean it up, strengthen the security, and restore it as soon as possible.

“We won’t allow the desperate people to succeed in their evil plots.” the statement read.

This, however, is not the first time the APC has been caught up in a plagiarism fiasco. In 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari was called out for copying some lines from former American president Barack Obama’s 2008 victory speech when he was delivering a speech to launch the “Change Begins With Me” campaign.

He subsequently came out to apologize.