University professors and faculty deans have defended plagiarism of essays taken on Facebook and passed off as original work. Azanian People’s Organization (Azapo) President Nelvis Qekema claimed Dr Edward Yusuf Mitole, who claims to be a professor of Development Studies at the University of SA (Unisa), wrote an essay on Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism. According to his Curriculum Vitae, Mitole, who claims to be a citizen of Malawi, is associated with Unisa’s African Renaissance Institute and was once a political adviser to President Jacob Zuma on radical economic transformation and expropriation…
University professors and faculty deans have defended plagiarism of essays taken on Facebook and passed off as original work.
Azanian People’s Organization (Azapo) President Nelvis Qekema claimed Dr Edward Yusuf Mitole, who claims to be a professor of Development Studies at the University of SA (Unisa), wrote an essay on Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism.
According to his Curriculum Vitae, Mitole, who claims to be a citizen of Malawi, is associated with Unisa’s Institute Of African Renaissance and was once a political advisor to former President Jacob Zuma on radical economic transformation and land expropriation without compensation.
Plagiarism scandal
Qekema has publicly accused the academic, without mentioning Mitole’s name, of lifting his essay on Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism, word for word and claiming it as his own work.
The politician denied the intellectual theft in a Facebook post and told Radio 702 that he asked for advice on how to do it.
During the interview, Qekema claimed a “professor and dean of a Pretoria-based university faculty” had plagiarized the essay titled. Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness: Solidarity and Synergy for Liberation.
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“We expect professors to give us, and never steal (sic) from us. And now I have to spend a good amount of time fighting with professors, instead of us working together on relevant political issues. Whatever, fight on. And I will do it whatever is necessary to defend my integrity,” he said.
Qekema said the essay was published on the Azapo website and on Facebook on May 30, 2014, but the essay was published on Modern Ghana website on December 22, 2022 under the name of Mitole.
Cut and paste
Qekema said that Mitole was his friend on Facebook and this is how he accessed the essay.
He further said that the professor had also previously approached him to collaborate on the African renaissance movement program, but this never happened.
“They cut and pasted my essay, words, punctuation marks, including my picture… the only thing they did was remove my name and put it on another,” he said.
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He said he was shocked when the party’s media monitoring unit issued an alert on the theft, questioning what the professor was teaching his students when he plagiarized other people’s work.
“If someone steals your work, then there is a dilemma about the authorship of the work. It means that my integrity is at stake. Many people just think that I have stolen the work of the professor. Remember that he has more credentials than me in terms of academics,” he said.
‘It’s not plagiarism, it’s just sharing an idea’
Mitole did not deny Qekema’s accusations of plagiarism, saying he “shared” the essay with readers in Africa and republished it in Modern Ghanathe continent’s leading Pan African publication.
“That is not true, the essay is a scientific article. It is not. Maybe just an opinion. I can give it to him. But it is not a scientific article. The publication is a Pan African publication and is not legally required to publish scientific articles. Just a piece of opinion,” he said.
What is also not true, Mitole protested, is that he seeks to earn money by “sharing” the article because the publication does not pay for the content it publishes.
He suggested that he did Qekema by spreading the liberating truth contained in the essay with a larger African audience because Azapo’s presidency was only in South Africa.
Mitole said that what he is worried about is hypocrisy, because Qekema has not tried to acknowledge the sources of the ideas in the essay.
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He claimed that most of the content was simply extracted from the works of prominent African scholars, including himself, thereby violating all referencing rules.
“Some of the content appears from an interview I previously gave SABC News and friendship. That brother is not honest in admitting that he is guilty of the same crime as me,” said Mitole.
He said that what is wrong is that he stole Qekema’s work, because in Africa it is not possible to steal ideas because “our knowledge belongs to us together as a people. It cannot be credited to anyone. This is the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors”
Unisa has not yet responded to a request for comment.