Senate President Godswill Akpabio said that banditry wouldn’t have existed in Nigeria today if the old national anthem had been reintroduced early and attributed Nigeria’s current banditry crisis to the change of the national anthem in 1978.
During his visit to the Nigerian Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies on Tuesday, Akpabio stated that the nation would not be experiencing such widespread banditry if the anthem had remained unchanged.
He emphasized that the alteration of the national anthem has contributed to the ongoing security challenges faced by the country.
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.
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The Senate President said “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.”
There have, however, been several criticisms against the reversion to the old national anthem composed by the colonial leaders when the British government colonised Nigeria, as many Nigerians have described it as neocolonialism.
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