Senate president, Godswill Akpabio has voiced concern about the wordings of the new national anthem, which was dished out by the National Orientation Agency.
Speaking during an executive session of the Senate Tuesday, Akpabio noted that some of the words in the reintroduced national anthem were not the same as the one approved by the national assembly. He said the NOA needs to roll out the anthem with the correct words.
“Take note of what we have here; what we have is different from what the NOA has,” Akpabio told his colleagues.
“Where we have Nigerians ‘all’ are proud to say, they have Nigerians all and proud to say.
“Also, where we have ‘though’ tribes and tongues may differ, they have ‘those’ tribes and tongues.
“Also at the end where we have ‘Nigeria shall be blessed’, they have Nigeria ‘may’ be blessed.
“We are using ‘shall’ which is a compulsion that this country shall be blessed, so tell the National Orientation Agency to drop what they are circulating now.”
President Bola Tinubu signed into law the National Anthem Bill 2024 in May, dropping the 1978 ‘Arise O’ Compatriots’ for 1960 ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee.’ Nigerians are still struggling to come to terms with the change.
At Monday’s World Cup qualifier between Benin Republic and Nigeria in Abidjan Cote d’ Ivoire, the Arise O Compatriots was played, while at the CAA region two athletics championships in Ghana, organisers played both new and old anthems much to the chagrin of Nigerians.
