The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Peter Obi, and his supporters sang the old national anthem at a town hall meeting in Lagos on Thursday, after they refused to sing the new one.
A video from the meeting, which has now gone viral on social media, showed the moment the anchor asked everybody to stand up for the national anthem.
Obi, who was sitting in front with Funso Doherty, the governorship candidate of the NDC in Lagos, and other party leaders, did not join in the new anthem.
Their supporters also refused to sing it.
Seeing the cold response in the hall, the anchor quickly changed to the old anthem. The crowd then broke into song with energy and excitement.
Obi turned to face the crowd as they sang. He raised two fingers on both hands to form the sign of the NDC.
The town hall meeting had earlier turned rowdy after some thugs stormed the venue with cutlasses, sticks and stones. Many people in the hall ran for safety before security men restored calm and the programme continued.
Obi is no stranger to Lagos politics. In the 2023 presidential election, he defeated the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lagos, a state many people see as the home base of the ruling party.
He polled 582,354 votes in Lagos at the time. He contested that election on the platform of the Labour Party, LP.
President Bola Tinubu had on May 29, 2024, signed a bill that brought back the anthem titled ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee’.
That was the first national anthem of Nigeria. It was used from independence in 1960 until 1978.
In 1978, it was dropped for ‘Arise, O Compatriots’, which was used for 46 years before Tinubu brought back the first one.
It was the ‘Arise, O Compatriots’ anthem that Obi and his supporters sang in Lagos on Thursday.