Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) chieftain, Aisha Yesufu, has slammed the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, over the 48-hour ultimatum issued to the party’s national leader, Senator Seriake Dickson.
Naija News reports that Keyamo, in a statement on Saturday, challenged Dickson to explain why NDC members and supporters opted for the old national anthem during a recent town hall meeting in Lagos State.
The minister, who condemned the development, asked Dickson to tell Nigerians within 48 hours whether the party officially endorses using a proscribed anthem as its national symbol.
He wrote, “A National Anthem is one of a country’s national symbols. It represents a country’s history, values and SOVEREIGNTY. It is meant to UNITE citizens.
“When a group of people decide to defy it and sing something different from what others are signing as prescribed by law, that group is preparing grounds to break away from the country. It is one of the ingredients of SECESSION. And once the leader of such a group endorses the action, it means the group is then OFFICIALLY a secessionist movement.
“I AM THEREFORE OFFICIALLY CALLING ON the original ‘COUNTRYMAN’, my CLASSMATE, my friend and a man of considerable courage from our school days, SENATOR SERIAKE DICKSON, the official leader of the NDC, to within 48 hours SPEAK UP as to whether the NDC officially endorses a proscribed anthem as its own NATIONAL SYMBOL. The world is waiting.”
Reacting, Aisha Yesufu, in a post on her 𝕏 handle, said the ancestors of the South-South region would be disappointed if Dickson decides to respond to Keyamo’s ultimatum.
Yesufu also accused Keyamo of watching while the current administration desecrated the old national anthem.
She wrote, “If Seriake Dickson answers YOU as in the YOU that watched a National anthem being desecrated, whose history was not considered nor its people consulted before one man decided his ego had to be assuaged and changed it, then he fall hand!
Proper falling! Our South South ancestry go cry for their graves!!!!!
“This monopoly of anyhowness that you think you own has been manufactured by many.”
