The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has strongly opposed President Bola Tinubu's recent move to reintroduce Nigeria's old national anthem.

The forum, however, described the move as 'backward' and 'completely retrogressive.'

In an exclusive interview with Legit.ng, the spokesperson for ACF, Prof Tukur Mohammed Baba, argued that the reintroduction of the old anthem, which was used from 1960 to 1978, undermines the country's progress and unity.

He said: "Honestly, to go back to the colonial legacies, I think it is a retrogressive step. But it has been done sadly without a public hearing but with the legislature and so on. Honestly, I am not happy about it. It is a completely retrogressive step."

Speaking further on the old anthem's reintroduction, Baba observed that the wording provoked sad memories of the colonial era, adding that the lyrics do not speak to current-day realities in the country.

He said: "To be honest, that was totally unnecessary and misplaced, and it is egregious. Look, this is an all-colonial anthem. There are words in the anthem that are supremely rude to us as a third world country and as a people who were colonised.

"You can imagine the word natives in the anthem. You know in this day and age, it is speaking of brotherhood, what of sisterhood? Those wordings are outdated as they are insulting.

He said that if there was any cogent need to replace the anthem, reintroducing the 1978 anthem was out of place.

Baba, however, suggested that the president, seeing the need to change the anthem, should have called on Nigerians to patriotically design on in a competition.

"Honestly, if I would have suggested that if the anthem that was brought in 1978 was rejected, the current administration should have just called for a competition for Nigerians to bring an anthem that may reflect some of the sentiments in it."