President Buhari hands over ‘Change Begin With Me’ flag to Alhaji Mohammed

Who is the originator of the concept ‘Change Begin With Me’ a national reorientation initiative launched by President Muhammadu Buhari last Thursday? Two media and marketing communications specialists set the controversies over the ownership of the initiative off less than 48 hours after the launching with accusation that Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture stole the concept from a proposal they submitted to him sometimes ago.

But Brian e. Ebden, a marketing communications Consultant described the claims of the two as false and an attempt to blackmail the minister in a statement he issued to counter the claim on Saturday.

In the statement, Ebden detailed how the concept was developed with a Lagos communications firm with the support of the Minister over a period spanning over a year before it was launched last Thursday by the President.

While laying claim to the concept, Akin Fadeyi and Omo Bazuaye said in a statement that they had presented a concept for a national reorientation campaign tagged Not in My Country to the Minister of Information in 2015 after they were introduced to him by two aides of the President, Shehu Garba and Femi Adesina.

He added that during the meeting, Alhaji Mohammed had requested that the name of the concept should change the name to “Change Begins With Me.”

He added that following the presentation, “Akin went back to work re-shooting over 30 short films copies of what was sent to the Minister electronically. E-mails come with time and dates and NEVER lie even when not acknowledged as being received.

“That was sometime in December 2015 and we sent a reminder to him in June after NOT IN MY COUNTRY was officially launched in Lagos on the 3rd of May this year.  The only reason we named our concept NOT IN MY COUNTRY was because we didn’t want it associated with any particular government and their mantra. We wanted a catchy phrase something neutral that Nigerians can own for themselves,” Bazuaye who issued the statement on behalf of the two claimants to the concept said in the statement.

“It was a rude shock to us when on Thursday September 8 we saw the launch of what was an exact replica of what we had developed. The least we expected was for the Minister to partner or collaborate with us on this instead of leaving us in the cold,” he added.

But while countering the claims, Ebden said the proposal for Change Begins With Me was submitted to the Minister long before he assumed office.

His fill statement reads: I read with utter shock and disbelief the reported claim by some  people that the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stole their concept of ‘CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME’, which was launched by the President on Thursday, 8th Sept. 2016. This is nothing but sheer lies and blackmail.

The facts are that as a marketing communications consultant, I, together with the advertising agency Centerspread, were contacted a  week after Alhaji Lai Mohammed was nominated as Minister by the

President to attend a brainstorming workshop on Thursday 8th October 2015 at the White House Hotel in Ikeja.  At this briefing, Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s first statement was that once he has taken office, he wishes to launch a change campaign entitled,  “Change begins with me.”

It was Centerspread and my task to develop the communications campaign and strategy, following an in-depth  briefing which we received at this session. I have irrefutable evidence in the form of emails that two days later (10th October 2015), I sent the entire strategy document to Alhaji Lai Mohammed detailing the first stage of the communications plan. In this email (and I am more than happy to send it to anyone who so wishes), it is entitled (in capital letters, CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME).

By 30th October of 2015, the entire 1st generation creative work was sent to Alhaji Lai Mohammed which included the first created logo, artwork, jingles and TVC concepts.

A month later, both agencies attended a presentation session at Radio House in Abuja where two  campaigns were presented to a contingent of more than 100 people of  the Ministry of Information and Culture which included NTA, FRCN and  NOA and again it was clearly and unambiguously stated that the  campaign was “Change begins with me.”

Over the ensuing weeks following this initial presentation, the Honourable Minister repeatedly mentioned the impending campaign by its name and it was duly reported in the media. Further still, on Sunday 24th January 2016 at the Southern Sun Hotel in Ikoyi, the Honourable Minister presented the  campaign to all major artists and personalities who included King  Sunny Ade, Pasuma, MI, Don Jazzy, P Square, Mo Abudu and many others.

This again was public knowledge and can be verified here:

Having said this, what is conspicuous by its absence is any form of complaint or utterance by anyone whatsoever to the plethora of public information espoused directly by the Honourable Minister to argue that the concept of ‘Change begins with me’ belongs to him or her.

However, they waited for the campaign to be launched officially by the  President before making spuriously claims that the Honourable Minister plagiarised their so-called concept and appropriated their supposed intellectual property.

NOTHING WAS PLAGIARISED BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE MAKING THE RIDICULOUS CLAIM ADMITTED MEETING ALHAJI LAI MOHAMMED ON ANY PROPOSAL BEFORE HE WAS NOMINATED AND SWORN INTO OFFICE. YET, IT IS ON RECORD, AS I STATED IN THE STATEMENT, THAT THE WHOLE ‘CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME’ CONCEPT WAS FORMULATED AND CONCLUDED LONG BEFORE THE MINISTER WAS SWORN INTO OFFICE IN NOVEMBER 2015.

The irrefutable evidence to attest to all these facts are available and only confirms this position. The facts speak for themselves and, in my opinion, all those who are making these specious claims need to urgently apologise to the Minister.