Johannesburg - Azapo president Nelvis Qekema is planning to take Professor Edward Mitole to the cleaners after he allegedly stole his essay.
The essay, titled “Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness: Solidarity and Synergies for Liberation”, according to Qekema, was published under the professor’s name in a publication called Modern Ghana on December 22, 2022.
Qekema took to social media Facebook to expose the alleged personal intellectual theft and was supported by a number of users who also claimed that they are also victims of other professors.
“My heart is bleeding.
“A professor and dean of faculty of a Pretoria-based university stole my essay (Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness: Solidarity and Synergies for Liberation, 30 May 2014) and published it under his name on The Modern Ghana,” wrote Qekema.
However, speaking to Independent Media on Wednesday, Mitole, a PhD Professor of Development Studies Dean of the Faculty of African Renaissance Studies at the University of the State of the African Diaspora, admitted that he shared Qekema’s essay with his readership on Africa in the mentioned publication but denied stealing it.
"What is not true is that the essay is a scholarly article. It is not, maybe just an opinion piece. I can grant him that, but not a scholarly article. The publication is a Pan African publication and is not legally mandated to publish scholarly articles only opinion pieces," said Mitole.
Qekema further wrote: "The professor is my Facebook friend, and he made contact with me a few years ago. He plagiarised my essay word for word and even published it with a picture he also stole from me. In the 1997 picture, there are among others Dr Kwame Turé, Chris Swepu, Phumzile Msutu (late), and I. This is a black professor who says he's a pan-Africanist. We expect our professors to give to us and never steal from us. And I now have to spend a good deal of time fighting with the professor instead of us working together on relevant political matters. Anyway, the fight is on. And I will do anything necessary to defend my integrity," Qekema said.
Speaking in an interview with a talk radio show, Qekema vowed never to leave any stones unturned.
He said he felt disrespected by the professor, who, he said, responded to his accusations in a condescending way and gave him a long lecture about how he is handling the matter.
Qekema said he had not confronted the professor or the publication where his essay was featured. He said he found out about his allegedly stolen essay from a Azapo media monitoring team a few days ago, and he is still exploring steps he may take in dealing with the matter.
"There is no doubt I am going to take him to the cleaners, and this is not personal; it's not even about me because I first thought that maybe it's not worth it. Then again, I thought 'no no no', This thing is about principles; it's about values, you know, African values and African principles. So we need to deal with African excellence, black excellence, or we need to deal with these things. We do not know how many more victims there are of this professor," Qekema said.
The Star