Akpabio, who said this on Tuesday during his visit to the Nigerian Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies, saying Nigeria is experiencing the current spate of banditry today because of the change of the country’s anthem.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has said that Nigerian would not have been ravaged by banditry as it is today if the country had not changed its national anthem in 1978.
Akpabio, who said this on Tuesday during his visit to the Nigerian Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies, saying Nigeria is experiencing the current spate of banditry today because of the change of the country’s anthem.
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 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.