President Bola Ahmed Tinubu reverted to the old national anthem, ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’, 48 years after it was dropped for “Arise, O Compatriots”.
Tinubu signed the bill into the law after Senate and the House of Representatives previously passed the legislation at separate sittings.
As reported by Premium Times, a British woman, Lillian Jean Williams, wrote the lyrics of the anthem, ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’ in 1959.
Williams, an expatriate who lived in Nigeria at the time of her independence was awarded a prize for writing the anthem lyrics by the federal government.
Another woman and ballet musician, Frances Berda, won £1,000, for composing the music for the lyrics around the same period.
“Nigeria, We Hail Thee,” which was adopted as Nigeria’s first national anthem upon gaining independence in 1960 was later dropped in 1978 because it was British-brewed and did not include any Nigerian input.
The late famous South African literary icon Ezekiel Mphahlele, said Nigerians criticised the choice of adopting an anthem written and composed by two foreigners.
Mphahlele stated this in an article titled ‘Nigeria on the Eve of Independence in Africa Today’ published in September 1960.
“In the name of independence, the winning entries should have been chosen from the 500 entries that came from Nigerians themselves. Others again argued that the music should have been composed first and then the lyrics fitted to it instead of the other way round.”
The military administration of Olusegun Obasanjo later replaced the British-brewed anthem with “Arise, O Compatriots”.
John A. Ilechukwu, Eme Etim Akpan, Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, O Sota Omoigui and P. O. Aderibigbe wrote the lyrics of ‘Arise O Compatriots’ in 1978 while the Nigerian police band, under the directorship of B. E. Odiasse, composed the music in 1990.
