The Senate President, Senator Godwill Obot Akpabio on Tuesday lectured members of the Nigerian Senate on the new national anthem.
While urging the lawmakers to recite the anthem, Akpabio carefully followed it through a book to observe errors made during the recitation.
Upon completion, the former governor of Akwa Ibom State revoked them of making errors with the lyrics of the anthem and corrected them on the right wordings of the song.
After they were done, Akpabio stated that the lawmakers should take note of the wordings of the anthem approved by the Senate and discard the one being presented by the NOA.
He further stressed that what is being circulated by the National Orientation Agency isn’t true and should, as a matter of urgency be discarded.
He said, “Take note of what we have here; what we have is different from what the NOA has.
“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.
The Senate passed legislation to swap the national anthem from “Arise, O Compatriots” to “Nigeria, We Hail Thee.”
The bill, which speedily passed first and second readings on the same day was last week assented to by President Bola Tinubu.
