Let me state upfront that I was not one of the people excited about Nigeria’s change to the old national anthem. When the military, in a rather whimsical manner, replaced that national anthem with the one that we used till last month, they did not offer any plausible explanations. And there is none either for its reintroduction on May 29, except, perhaps, to shake the ground as a mark of President Tinubu’s first anniversary in office.
In any case, none of the two is particularly inspiring and only a few people have bothered to attach any deep philosophical undertone to them. National anthems speak to the soul. It inspires nations and her citizens.
It is a country’s plainsong, a chorale for the leaders and the led. It is the spiritual awakener, the potent hymn for war and the calming melody for peace. For us here, it may not be anything more than a part of a national ritual, a song for occasions that announce the leaders while the people sing along the wordings that hold no meaning to them.
So, for the sake of it, one must ask where the old anthem trumps the new in those ennobling aspects that so endeared it back into our hearts. My guess is that it is in the first stanza that speaks about unity and tolerance in one nation clogged by so many nationalities: though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand..
. The two lines above are enough to bring it back, if indeed we stand together as brothers in spite of our tribal differences. Sadly, we don’t, thanks to a.
