Nigeria @56: Facing Our Jerusalem Again From The Old National Anthem

Nigeria's flag

 One of the significant landmarks of self-fulfillment is to be independent and free from external influence. And of course for Nigeria as a nation, the need for freedom was an incumbent crusade of urgency, at that first minute the idea to be a sovereign state was conceived.  For many years prior to 1960 Nigeria was a hapless victim of colonial extortion and British exploitative agenda. It was indeed a peregrination of draconian rule ridden by all forms of worst colonial imposition. And for this reason Nigeria will continue to remember late Sir Anthony Enahoro for seeing the vision from the illusion of dark days, and those who with their blood the flag of the nation was raised. 

   
Yesterday clocked Nigeria is 56 –a gradual metamorphosis from toddler stage to giant-hood. Yes, we all woke up to see the flag of our nation set on another significant threshold of sovereignty. Despite all odds: myriad of challenges ranging from our religious cum ethnic differences, political cum intellectual diversities we’ve managed to survive, crossing dangerous roads, even in the face of often foretold revelations that we shall disintegrate. We have managed to maintain the brotherhood bound, singing our common anthem of freedom and patriotism from the bottom-line of River Niger to the pinnacle of Zuma Rock. 

While we are still in the euphoria celebrating a fundamental landmark of national history, looking back from where we’re coming from is imperative, our robust feats as a nation and our general weak-points, especially those frameworks of synchronized obstacles hampering our progressive spirit, with a view to taking right baton back to the right track. And of the first steps we need to take in order to face back our holy dreamland  is going back to our old national anthem, that Lillian Jean Williams’s written ‘Nigeria we Hail Thee.’

From the peripheral point-view this may sound like a cheerfully-humoured suggestion of an uncritical mind. For someone will ask what does freedom mean if we‘re still adopting the anthem gifted to us by our colonial masters. But someone who understands what Nigeria stands for, and what it’s built upon will never dispute the fact that, though from the onset of our independence we‘ve been battling barrels of challenges, changing our anthem seems to be a turning point of our collective misery.

We may further claim that it does not make any meaning of ideal commonsense, because even prior to 1978 when we changed our anthem to ‘Arise O Compatriots’, our country has gone through turbulent times from distortion of civilian rule by recurring military coups, civil war and others banes arisen from both personal and regional interest. But let it be said that that moment we changed our anthem stands to be a defining point of miserable reflection of badluck against building a desirable post-modern Nigeria for all. 

Going by analysis, first we should admit that our present anthem, ‘Arise O Compatriots’ cannot compete with the previous one in terms of artistic uniqueness, meaning and message. Many Nigerians who have read and paid attention to every wording of both anthems will affirm to this revelation. Second, the projection of the mandatory need for patriotism, sensitivity to national harmony, integrity and responsibility required of a submissive citizen is more concrete, strongly entrenched and clearly defined in the first anthem. Imagine where Nigeria would have been if everybody, irrespective of different ‘tribes and tongue’, ‘is proud to serve’ and pays his window’s mite to the country because of the belief that it’s ‘our dear native land.’

Nigeria @56

How will our children grow, pursuing regional and personal agenda rather than fighting a course towards the national interest if Nigeria-We-Hail-Thee anthem is what they sing every morning on the assembly ground? Why will a Hausa man fight his Yoruba Nigerian brother? And how will Igbo youths who are ignorant of beautiful dreams of able men truncated during Civil war wake up one morning craving for secession?    

Another mistake which is a significant marker of negative turning-point for post-modern Nigeria with collectively shared civic responsibilities is replacing our country’s title ‘Motherland’ (in Nigeria We Hail Thee), with ‘Fatherland’ as reflected in our present anthem. We all know Nigeria is a nation built on British’s interest – a country of many countries! Immediately after the Amalgamation of 1914 by Lord Lugard, we’ve assumed that a nation wombs us –we different peoples of diverse cultural backgrounds –and that’s Nigeria, our mother. The wisdom here is that since the inception of the world, one of the undisputed facts is that there is usually a stronger bound among children of the same mother but of different fathers than vice-versa. In 1978, that year we removed the word ‘Motherland’ from our anthem, and replaced it with ‘Fatherland’ unknowingly we’ve set a trajectory of gradual disintegration for ourselves. 

And quite unfortunate our political leaders have capitalized on this through religion and ethnical borderline. In 1993 when this malady has not deeply burrowed into our bloodstream, Nigeria freely voted for the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Abiola-Kingibe rather than (what we now agree to be) ‘balanced’ Muslim-Christian ticket of Tofah-Ugoh ticket in an election that stands first in our history. But in 2015 election, Nigeria witnessed arguably the worst campaign of religious bigotry and ethnical cynicism.    President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, All Progressives Congress were target of religious and ethnical attacks and defamation by now opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party and some blindly misled partisans and self-styled religious propagandists. How can we move on?

Lastly, ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’ is a typical of anthem any nation can wish for. No wonder some of its lines and words are found in our present anthem. It starts with praise of the ‘Motherland’, then our wishes for great values that will be generationally transmittable; and lastly prayers and request to God to make Nigeria a land ‘where no man is oppressed.” Certainly Nigeria is a nation where oppression is another anthem. Everywhere we sing of oppression, marginalization, and regional sympathy. If every leader and post-bearer believes that no man should be oppressed, with our potentials and endowments, we will fly far.

 May Nigeria be great!