By Abiola Olawale
Nigerians on Twitter, criticized a former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar for misquoting George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright in his congratulatory message to US President Joe Biden.
Atiku had on Wednesday taken to his Twitter account to congratulate Biden on his inauguration day.
However, the congratulatory message went wrong as it was clouded with a big error after he misquoted Shaw’s statement.
The Irish playwright was credited to have said, “American and England are two countries separated by the same language.”
However, in an attempt to emphasize on the relationship between America and Nigeria, Atiku committed a big error.
He said, “As the playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, America and Nigeria are two nation’s divided by a common language.”
Following the error by the former Vice President, Nigerians have reacted under his comment section on Twitter.
Many were amazed that a former Vice President of Nigeria and an aspiring candidate for the number one seat in the country could commit such a big blunder.
Below are some of the reactions of Nigerians on Twitter:
“George Bernard died in 1950 & Nigeria was under Colonials then. Nonetheless, he never spoke about Nigeria but America & Britain.
Thus, “America and Britain are two nations divided by a common language”. Sir, this outright lying is one of many reasons you can never be president”, (@Kempez2017)
“Is this plagiarism or what? Sir you lied blatantly, and this is wrong. George Bernard Shaw didn’t make such statement with reference to Nigeria. But why am I surprised?
Anything to catch people…”, (@iyesophial)
“But next time get your facts right
George Bernard made reference to America and Britain, there’s no such thing as common between America and Nigeria, and you’re saying this for your own benefit, i am not surprised bro!”, (@ wnchstr6)
“Sir, George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, and could not have made that reference when Nigeria, in 1950, was a British colony”, (@yusufbeekay1701)
It would be recalled that Atiku, 74, is a Nigerian politician and businessman.
He served as the vice president of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. He also contested for the 2019 presidential election of Nigeria under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which he lost. He is a member of the PDP.