President Bola Tinubu signed the national anthem bill into law on May 29 at an event celebrating his one year in office, marking the change from the “Arise O Compatriots” to the old “Nigeria We Hail Thee.”
Some Nigerians have commended the president for the development, while many have condemned the move. Critics questioned the relevance of the initiative amid the country’s present economic condition.
Did Tinubu spend N814bn on national anthem?
Amid the controversy, a blog post by RWGblog claimed in a widely shared flyer on its Instagram page that changing the national anthem gulped N814 billion from the federal government coffer.
The post claimed that budget and economic planning minister Atiku Bagudu disclosed this in a statement.
The blog post has generated controversies on social media and has been shared on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).
FG did not spend N814 on national anthem
However, Dubawa, an independent fact-checking organisation, ran a fact-check of the claim on the minister’s Facebook page, and such a claim cannot be found on Bagudui’s page.
Also, the Ministry of Budget and National Planning’s social media pages did not share anything related to the claim.
Bagudu’s special assistant on media, Bolaji Adeniyi, was then contacted for clarification. He stated that the minister never made any statement about the reintroduced national anthem.
He replied: “We addressed that matter some time ago. The minister did not make any statement on the new national anthem at all. He is unaware that any budget was set aside for the new national anthem. The information is false.”
Also, in a report by The Cable, Lanre Issa-Onilu, the director general of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), said the agency did not receive funds for the national anthem.
