For some months now, I have been taking classes in Data Analysis and even though they have been somewhat challenging considering the enormity of some other things I have been tasked with, the experience has been really exciting. I get this feeling that I should have done this long before now. That's not where I am going though. In my Data Analysis course, we were given a set of projects to deliver on and with a deadline for submission of the projects.
Maybe because of my busy schedule, the projects put me through the most intensely rigourous few weeks I have experienced in a very, very long while. As demanding as the projects were though, I had told myself that quitting was not an option. After a few sleepless nights, and the unflinching encouragement from my ever-supportive co-collaborator, I was able to submit some days before the expiration of the deadline. As is normal, the closer the deadline day got, the more frantic everyone in the cohort got...at least for those who were still working on their own projects.
The submission was open for everyone to see and in my mind, I knew people would copy other people's ideas and some others would draw inspiration from the works of others. After all, my co-collaborator and I also consulted the internet regularly in the course of executing the projects. What I did not imagine or expect was for someone to brazenly and outrightly plagiarize another person's project. So you can imagine my shock and disbelief when a guy in my cohort submitted screenshots of his own and had two of my visualizations as his own. I was even more alarmed when I saw that he had stolen eight of my co-collaborator's visualizations.
Yes, you guessed right - I challenged the guy. His excuse was even more laughable than the original idea behind his plagiarism. He said because we were all given the same dataset to work with, it was normal for him to produce the exact same visualizations as mine.
Of course, many people in the group reprimanded him. Some were even ashamed on his behalf but the guy did not seem to care. Then I realised that he may have been in this habit for long. Copy in the exam to pass, pay people to write school projects and generally try to reap where he has not sown. Whatever his real reason was for what he did was, I may never know. But whether he was too busy to have time to do the projects or was too lazy to do the necessary work needed to execute the projects, one thing is apparent - taking short cuts was an option he would readily jump at.
I felt sorry for him because even if he was not trained and brought up that way, he will most likely train and bring his offsprings up that way (if he is one open to bearing kids). If by now, he sees nothing wrong with trying to cheat to pass, how is he going to tell his kids that there is dignity in labour? How will he ever be able to tell his children not to cheat in examinations because they want to pass? How will he be able to obtain entitlements strictly on merit?
It is not just this guy, it is environment we live in...the very system that supports our living has not only taught us that it is okay to shunt queues, the atmosphere itself frowns on diligence, lawfulness and sincerity. The most unfortunate part of this is that it has become systemic. A public servant cannot render proper accounts, claiming that an animal has eaten the records. What is even more unfortunate is that the justice system is at best a make-believe caricature. Because the most that will happen is a slap on the wrist for not being more protective of the records; and the volume of the loot will be inversely proportional to the weight of the punishment.
The ease with which people misappropriate is the same ease with which they blame everyone and everything else but themselves. In fact, the biggest sufferer of this blame is usually the government. However, one thing we are swift to forget is that (according to the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt), the "government is ourselves and not an alien power over us". This means that whether we choose to admit it, we are the reasons we are where we are.
Citizens of countries where people act right do not have three heads, they just choose to act right. In countries where things work like they should, the government was not imported from outer space; the people in that government were chosen from among the populace.
If and when we decide to be accountable to ourselves, that is when the fortune of the country and all who live in it will begin to reverse for good. But if majority of us, the government, are like this guy in my class who thinks plagiarism is a part of learning, our start to the journey to recovery is far, very far from view.