NOA Fire Back At Akpabio Over New National Anthem Comment
The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has insisted that its version of the new national anthem released last week was the correct one.
The Director-General of NOA, Lanre Issa-Onilu, said this in a statement issued on Tuesday by the agency’s Deputy Director of Press, Paul Odenyi.
Mr Issa-Onilu was responding to an observation made by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on the national anthem during Tuesday’s plenary.
Mr Akpabio, during the plenary, identified errors in lines three, five, and 18 of the national anthem released by the NOA..
“Where you have, ‘Nigerians all, are proud to serve’, they said ‘Nigerians all, and proud to serve’, that is number one, it should be ‘are’.
“And then it said ‘though tribes and tongues may differ’, they said, ‘though tribe and tongue, I hope you understand and at the end where we said ‘Nigeria shall be blessed’, they did not say so. They said ‘Nigeria may be blessed’.
“We are using the word shall, which is compulsion, that this country shall be blessed. So, tell the National Orientation Agency to drop what they are circulating now. Congratulations to all of us” Mr Akpabio said.
In the statement, Mr Issa-Onilu, clarified that its version remained the corrected lyrics approved in the Act signed by President Bola Tinubu.
He said the audio version will be released soon.
“The official version that we issued remains the correct lyrics. We are making an effort to standardise the instrumental and audio versions before we release it to the public,” he said.
The DG said the senate president was misled…
