President Muhammadu Buhari has sacked a member of his communication unit who plagiarized part of his ‘Change Begins with Me’ speech, which he delivered earlier this month.

The aide was not named publicly. The president’s communication team also acquired a new digital process to help in drafting speeches and avoid embarrassing mistakes like plagiarism.

‘At 8 o’clock on the Monday morning following the allegations, he reported at the office of the head of civil service and was immediately asked to vacate his position and office at the State House pending further measures which will be guided by civil service rules and regulations,” Vanguard quoted a source privy to the president.

The speech had an entire paragraph lifted from the speech made by U.S. President Barack Obama after winning the presidency in November 2008.

The campaign launched by Buhari seeks to encourage Nigerians to adopt transparency, attitudinal change, embrace hard work and shun corruption in order to improve the country’s image globally.

The plagiarism scam was the second to hit Buhari’s presidency.

During his inauguration speech in May last year, his speech had lines lifted from a book by Charles de Gaulle, former president of France in 1958, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, the government slammed The Economist, a United-Kingdom-based magazine over a commentary piece it wrote on the “Change Begins with Me’ campaign, Premium Times reported.

The article titled ‘Nigeria’s war against indiscipline, Behave or be whipped’ claimed that the president’s campaign was meant to shift blame from government’s failures and use force to bring a change in attitude amongst Nigerians.

The magazine added that Buhari’s government had employed 150,000 volunteers to enforce the campaign, Daily Post reported.

The government described the magazine’s commentary to be driven by racism and prejudice and meant to scuttle efforts to improve the nation’s image globally.

“Contrary to the newspaper’s self-professed belief in “plain language,’ the article in question, from the headline to the body is a master-piece of embellishment or dressed-up language. It is loaded with innuendos and decidedly pejorative at best and downright racist at worst, Daily Post quoted part of a statement issued by the minister of Information and Culture.