Nigeria’s Ambassador to Mexico, Reno Omokri, has accused the Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Peter Obi, of disrespecting the country’s national symbols after Obi and party supporters recited the discarded national anthem at a town hall meeting in Lagos.
The gathering, held in the Oregun area of Lagos on Thursday, saw attendees sing “Arise, O Compatriots” after the event moderator switched away from the current anthem, “Nigeria, We Hail Thee”. Omokri replied in a statement on Friday, framing the moment as a test of character for anyone seeking the nation’s highest office.
He described the Constitution, the national anthem and the national football team as apolitical symbols that bind Nigerians across their differences, and pointed to Section 24(a) of the 1999 Constitution, which lists respect for national symbols among the duties of every citizen. Omokri questioned whether leaders who openly reject those symbols could expect citizens to trust them with the country’s fate.
The anthem at the centre of the dispute is itself a recent restoration. “Nigeria, We Hail Thee” returned through the National Anthem Act 2024, which President Bola Tinubu signed on 29 May 2024, the first anniversary of his administration. Written by a British expatriate, Lillian Jean Williams, with music by Frances Berda, it served as the country’s anthem from independence in 1960 until the military government replaced it with “Arise, O Compatriots” in 1978.
That earlier swap was contested from the outset. Critics, among them former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili, dismissed the 2024 reversion as a misplaced priority at a time of rising hardship, and several public figures vowed to keep singing the 1978 version. During the hunger protests of August 2024, demonstrators in Lagos, Ogun and Rivers recited “Arise, O Compatriots” in open defiance, and the old anthem has since carried a charge of dissent that Thursday’s recital revived.
Omokri’s intervention carries its own irony. When the law was passed in 2024, he publicly questioned the wisdom of the change, calling it an unnecessary act of governance while hunger, poverty and insecurity demanded attention. His position has shifted considerably since then. A former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan and once a fierce critic of Tinubu and the governing All Progressives Congress, Omokri was named Nigeria’s ambassador to Mexico in March 2026, a posting the Mexican government formally approved in October, and he has become one of Obi’s most persistent opponents.
The clash also lands squarely in the opening phase of the 2027 campaign. Obi, who contested the 2023 election on the Labour Party platform, is now the NDC candidate after he and his running mate, former Kano governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, left the African Democratic Congress in May 2026, citing internal crises and unresolved court cases. The Independent National Electoral Commission’s final candidates list confirms Obi as the NDC flag bearer and Kwankwaso as his deputy, setting up a three-cornered contest with Tinubu of the APC and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the ADC when Nigerians vote on 16 January 2027.
Neither Obi nor the NDC had issued a formal reply to Omokri’s criticism at the time of writing. For many government critics, singing the older anthem has become less an act of disloyalty than a way of signalling frustration with the direction of the country, which complicates any attempt to read the Lagos recital purely as contempt for national identity.
What the episode shows is how quickly a national symbol can become a weapon in a tightening political race. An anthem that most Nigerians treated as a settled matter only two years ago is once again a line of attack for the government’s allies and a quiet statement of protest for its opponents, and with the vote barely two months away, such skirmishes over symbols are likely to multiply.