Confab recommends return to old national anthem

The national conference on Thursday adopted the recommendation of its committee on political restructuring and forms of government that Nigeria should revert to its old national anthem.

During a review of the committee’s report, delegates in support of the resolution recited the anthem at the floor of plenary, maintaining that it promotes a better symbol of unity, peace and prosperity — compared with the current one, composed by the late Benedict Odiase (pictured).

Lillian Jean Williams composed the lyrics of the anthem, which was sung between 1960 and 1978, while it was written by by Frances Berda.

The conference equally resolved that for Nigeria to achieve its full intention of building a fully-integrated nation, its citizens should live in unity and harmony as one indivisible under God.

However, it rejected the proposal to change the national flag and the name ‘Nigeria’.

On Wednesday, Chief Mike Ozekhome, a delegate of the federal government had proposed that the change of the country’s name from ‘Nigeria’ to ‘Airegin’ — which he arrived at by by rewriting ‘Nigeria’ from right to left — to wash the country of colonial legacy.

“I want to move that this conference should consider changing the name of the country to reflect our originality,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“The name Nigeria was a colonial imposition which must be corrected. The name was given to the country by Lady Flora Shaw who later became Lady Lugard.”