The Lagos State governorship candidate for the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Funso Doherty, said the new national anthem was sung at a recent town hall meeting in Lagos.
Naija News reports that Doherty’s explanation followed Thursday’s incident at the NDC town hall meeting in Lagos, where the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and other attendees declined to stand when invited to sing the current national anthem.
The event anchor subsequently switched to the former anthem, “Arise, O Compatriots”, which Peter Obi, Doherty and other supporters sang.
The incident has attracted criticism from the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, Nigeria’s Ambassador to Mexico, Reno Omokri, and other political elites.
Speaking on Nigeria Info 99.3FM on Friday, Doherty said the current national anthem was also sung after the crowd had recited the former version.
Doherty said the NDC supporters spontaneously sang Nigeria’s former national anthem at the party event and organisers could not control their reaction, particularly given the emotional atmosphere surrounding the meeting.
He added that the official anthem was eventually performed, insisting that Nigeria had only one national anthem.
He said, “Well, the point to be made is that if you watched that show, you will see that the new national anthem was actually sung after that initial singing of the old national anthem, and what happened was it was a spontaneous thing by the crowd.
“Obviously, the national anthem is the national anthem. We only have one national anthem, and ultimately that was what we sang”.
