THE OBSESSION WITH OLD ANTHEM

There are more pressing issues in the country that should engage the attention of the lawmakers

Last week, both the Senate and House of Representatives referred to their respective committees a bill to revert to the old national anthem. Sponsored by the Majority Leaders in the two chambers, the bill was given accelerated hearing in a manner that suggests the involvement of some vested interests. “I believe that the old anthem encompasses, contains, exudes the kind of energy, resourcefulness and a sense of vision that is good for Nigeria,” House Leader, Julius Ihonvbere said while leading the discussion at plenary. But the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, countered that the old anthem is a symbol of the past and that there are more pressing issues in the country to engage their attention. “While it is our function to make laws, but for every law there must be a spirit to it. What value will it (anthem) add to us as a nation?” Chinda asked.

Despite proposing the replacement of the current anthem with the old one, the bill seeks to make “the second stanza of the current national anthem the national prayer.” So, what is being proposed is an amalgamation of the two anthems. But how does changing the national anthem solve any of the many pressing national problems we are faced with today in the country? Besides, the wordings of the old anthem hint at a surfeit of ancient colonialist biases. Whose ‘native land’? And what about the ‘tribes’? Not to talk of the explosive gender controversy that will be set off if we insist on the line about ‘standing together in brotherhood’ as an indication of unity.

While many pertinent questions remain unanswered, the line of reasoning that returning the old anthem evokes “a strong spirit of patriotism” is unconvincing and pedestrian while the argument that the current one is “far less inspirational” is neither here nor there. May we also remind the lawmakers and their collaborators within the executive arm that leading nations did not achieve the feats by a whimsical change of national anthems. Their development is a function of comprehensive policies, faithful implementation and leadership accountability to the people. It is difficult to fathom the rationale for this misplaced nostalgia about the past. We can only conclude, as most people have, that the motivation is more about feeding the personal vanity of some powerful people than any genuine linguistic concerns about the current anthem.

With angry citizens expressing their frustration about the daily hikes of staple foods, transportation costs, school fees, house rent and other inescapable expenses that are becoming impossible to finance, the lawmakers have their job cut out for them in a nation blessed with enormous natural and human resources, but which has consistently been held down by poor governance at virtually all levels. The obsession with the old anthem is therefore an indication of their lack of connection to the desperate crises threatening the nation. Ahmad Satomi, a lawmaker from Borno State and member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) spoke for many Nigerians when he asked his colleagues whether changing the national anthem would solve the problem of hunger and general insecurity in the country. But his contribution, along with that of many members, was lost to the leadership of a National Assembly that is fast losing credibility.

At a period when Nigeria is marking 25 years of unbroken democracy amid serious socio-economic challenges, we expect our federal lawmakers to be more serious than this. To the best of our knowledge, there is no compelling argument on the table so far against the current anthem. Besides, bringing back an anthem that was dumped 46 years ago in a nation in which 71 per cent of the population is under the age of 30 and life expectancy is 55 years means this idea can only appeal to members of a vanishing generation. If some people don’t like the way the current anthem sounds, we do not believe that their musical preference should be imposed on the rest of the country.