By Damilare Adeleye
President Bola Tinubu has given his assent to the National Anthem Bill 2024 reverting the country to the old national anthem, “Nigeria, we hail thee”.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, revealed this on Wednesday at a joint session of the National Assembly marking the Silver Jubilee Of Nigeria’s 4th Republic.
President Bola Tinubu is expected at the joint session.
Akpabio said the sitting is primarily to launch the new national anthem, explaining that the President will not be making a speech because he has to leave to launch the Abuja metro line.
The Senate and the House of Representatives had previously passed the bill at separate sittings.
The bill which was said to be an executive bill, was passed for second and third reading on the floor of the House of Representatives during plenary last week Thursday.
The bill mainly seeks to replace the current anthem with the former one ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee’, which was adopted as the country’s first national anthem on October 1, 1960 but was dropped in 1978 by the Olusegun Obasanjo military regime.