An ex-lawmaker, who was a member of the 2014 National Conference, and a member of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu, during an interview with The Punch, shared his thoughts on the proposed bill by the House of Representatives to return Nigeria to a regional system of government, the 2014 confab, among other issues.
When Okurounmu was told during the interview that some people said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, may have started implementing some of the recommendations of the reports of the 2014 national conference, due to the adoption of the old national anthem, Okurounmu claimed that the 2014 confab never recommended the adoption of the old anthem.
He said, "There are lots of false reports. The 2014 national conference did not recommend that we go back to the old national anthem. When we started the Confab, there was the issue of whether we should have an opening prayer or closing, whether it should be Islamic prayer or Christian prayer and to avoid all these conflicts between faiths, we decided that the third stanza of the old anthem which is a form of prayer should be used."
Further talking, he said it is a very good prayer for Nigeria and due to that, they all unanimously adopted the third stanza of the old anthem to be their prayer throughout the conference. And each time they were going to say the opening prayer, they recited the third stanza of the old national anthem instead.