…says Oby Ezekwesili, others will sing new anthem
The National Orientation Agency on Wednesday, June 5, unveiled the approved version of the reintroduced national anthem.
The agency also explicitly asked Nigerians to pay attention to the words in lines three and five of the national anthem that was reintroduced.
The Nation reported that on May 29 President Bola Tinubu signed into law the bill to revert to the old national anthem.
Lanre Issa-Onilu, the Director-General of the NOA, unveiled the standardized version of the anthem on Wednesday in Abuja.
He explained that the goal of the exercise was to guarantee that the lyrics remain consistent.
He said: “Today’s event is to present the official version which will clear all doubts about the correct lyrics as contained in the Act signed by the President.
“We call the attention of Nigerians to line three of the first stanza, which reads: Though tribes and tongues may differ. Note that the words “tribes” and “tongues” are in plural. We want you to also note that line five of the first stanza reads: Nigerians all, are proud to serve”. The word ”are”, not ”and” is correct.”
He also said that the agency will soon call for entries for production of an authentic Nigerian melody for the anthem.
He said: “On the official instrumental and audio rendition, the NOA will call for entries for the production of an authentic Nigerian melody, taking into cognisance, the indigenous instrumentation of the Nigerian people.
“The effective date for the entries and the procedure will be announced through NOA channels in the coming week.”
The NOA boss also said that from next week Artificial Intelligence will be deployed in disseminating the anthem in different local languages. He said AI will be used to render the anthem in a local language of one’s choice.
He said:” By next week we are going to launch our AI chat room. It will automatically render in whatever language you want. So on your own, you can request for it to be sung in your own language and you will get it.
Regarding questions about national prayer, Issa-Onilu said “the NOA will follow the official procedure to obtain approval for the adoption of a new National Prayer.”
He however added: “The National Pledge.”
On Oby Ezekwesili and others who said they will not sing the new anthem, Issa-Onilu was positive that they will sing it.
He said, “ I saw people who overreacted and reacted too early. Trust me they will sing it.”
He stressed: “The National Anthem is part of the National Identity project of the Tinubu administration, being one of the seven programmes for the institutionalisation of our national values.
“The Anthem is one of the country’s national symbols, which NOA as custodian, is mandated to promote and preserve its integrity for national cohesion, unity and a sense of patriotism.”
He also debunked the report making the rounds on social media that the federal government allocated over N800 billion for the campaign for the new national anthem.
He said no allocation has been set aside for the campaign as rumoured in the social media.
He said: Let me say that we must be careful of what we see on social media. Even the person that is writing it does not believe it, he is just pranking it as being part of genz culture.
“Let me say that the only agency that has the mandate to do what we are doing is the NOA and that is why we have a humongous infrastructure to be able to reach everywhere.
“I can assure you that as I speak to you, the Federal Government has not spent one naira or allocated one naira to this. Not at all. Not as I speak has one naira been allocated or spent by the federal government for this. What we are doing so far as NOA is to rely on our structure. We work on a daily basis without the National anthem and we do the best that we can. So we have not got that money and no allocation of N800 not to talk of N800 billion in this economy.”
He also said ”NOA will be working with a wide spectrum of stakeholders to ensure citizens’ buy-in of the National Anthem and sing it reflectively with a sense of pride.”
The leadership of the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission, NBC, Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, Nigeria Union of Teachers also pledged their support towards cascading the new anthem down to the grassroots.
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