Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has argued that Nigerian would not have been ravaged by banditry as it is today if the country had not changed its national anthem in 1978.
The Senate President, who said this on Tuesday, during his visit to the Nigerian Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies, noted that Nigeria is experiencing the current spate of banditry today because of the change of the country’s anthem.
According to him, the new National Anthem will build patriotism and help the country resolve insecurity.
Highlighting the reason the national anthem bill was one of the most appealing pieces of legislation passed by the 10th National Assembly, said that reverting to Nigeria’s old national anthem has enormous social impacts in the country.
The Senate President stated, “A lot of people were not aware that there was a panel set up made of Nigerians to receive input from all over the world. When these people are saying we are bringing in a colonial anthem, please look into the history of the ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’.
“If you check that national anthem, we probably could not have banditry today. Because if you take your neighbour as your brother, you will not want to kill your brother. If you take your neighbour as your brother, you will want to go into an attack to behead your brother.
The Senate President further said, “The Bill sent to us by President Bola Tinubu on student loan and scholarship programmes will enable vulnerable Nigerian students who are less-privileged to obtain higher education. And, as I speak to you now, over 30,000 have been selected to benefit from it. That’s one of the Bills that appeals to me the most.
“A lot of people are now aware that there was a panel set up in 1959 made up of Nigerians to receive input from all over the world.
“So, when people say we’re bringing a colonial anthem, please look into the history of ‘Nigeria we hail thee’. If we kept to that national anthem, we probably wouldn’t have banditry today in Nigeria, because if you take your neighbour as your brother, you won’t want to kill him or go to the farm to behead your brother,” he said.
Recall that the Federal Government unveiled the approved version of Nigeria’s reintroduced national anthem.
The Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre Issa-Onilu, unveiled the standardised version of the anthem yesterday in Abuja.
He urged Nigerians to pay close attention to the words in lines-3 and 5 of the National Anthem that was reintroduced.
Recall that on May 29, on the one-year anniversary of the current administration, President Bola Tinubu signed the National Anthem Bill 2024 reverting to the old national anthem: “Nigeria, we hail thee” from “Arise, O Compatriots”.
The President said the latest National Anthem, ‘Nigeria, we hail thee’ “is our diversity, representing all characters and how we blend to be brothers and sisters”.
