The text of the broadcast of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on measures being taking to curtail the spread of COVID-19 surfaced on social media platforms ahead of the 8pm scheduled for the broadcast on Monday.

The usual practice is that the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity will release the speech to media houses through electronic mail immediately the President starts his broadcast.

But on Monday, the draft of the speech started circulating on the Internet and across social media platforms some hours ahead of time.

The draft speech was full of errors but the errors were corrected in red ink.

The copy was printed under the seal of Office of the President.

Our correspondent could not immediately ascertain the source of the leaked speech.

A Presidency source, however, told our correspondent that it is easy to trace the source of the leakage since the leaked speech is the draft.

“Well, those who originated the speech should be held accountable because it was the draft that leaked,” he said.

The source made a veiled reference to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as the source of the leak.

This is the first time such leak will be experienced under Buhari.