President Bola Tinubu has signed into law the bill to revert to the old national anthem.
President Tinubu assented to the bill on Wednesday.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, disclosed this while addressing lawmakers at the ongoing joint session of the National Assembly.
The bill seeks to replace the current anthem with the former one adopted as the country’s independence on October 1, 1960, but was changed in 1978 by the Olusegun Obasanjo military regime.
The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday while the House of Representatives passed it last Thursday.
In his address at the joint sitting, the senate president urged Nigerians to familiarise themselves with the new national anthem.
The new national anthem was sung upon President Tinubu’s arrival in the House chamber for the joint session.
“This morning, Mr President, signed into an act of Parliament the newly passed national anthem 2024,” the senate president said.
“In our usual tradition, the deputy Senate President and the deputy speaker with the leaders will receive Mr President now and usher him into the chamber for what I call “waka pass”, he added.
Mr Akpabio said the lawmakers will henceforth refer to themselves as brothers and not compatriots contained in the previous national anthem.
“Henceforth, we will not refer to ourselves as dear compatriots, we will refer to ourselves as brothers and as we go forward in battle, whether in the field of sports, in the field of politics, we must hail Nigeria and so we are all saying today that Nigeria, we Hail thee.”
The senate president, thereafter, urged Nigerians to see themselves as brothers and spread the brotherhood spirit among one another.
Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/698749-updated-tinubu-signs-bill-to-revert-to-old-national-anthem.html
