The country’s National Assembly unanimously adopted a new anthem on Thursday (June 22) to replace “La Nigérienne”, which had been used since the country’s independence. This new song is called “For the honor of the fatherland”.
Niger has a new national anthem. It’s been a long time since the old one, the nigerian, was criticized in the country. This piece was composed in 1961, a year after the country’s independence, by a French composer, Maurice Albert. If the government recognized in this anthem all the values of attachment to national identity and peace, it also blamed it for certain shortcomings, in particular paternalism. In particular, the third and fourth lines of the hymn were criticized: “Let us be proud and grateful for our newfound freedom.” It was believed that the word “grateful” indicated subservience to France, the former colonial power.
>> Algerian national anthem: a controversial and anti-France verse restored by a decree of the Algerian president
The anthem change project had been announced in 2019 by former President Issoufou and a group of elected officials and experts had been set up to work on new lyrics and a new melody: “Embodying valor and perseverance, and all the virtues of our worthy ancestors, Fearless, determined and proud warriors, defend the fatherland at the cost of our blood.”
Past and current struggle
This new anthem, according to parliamentary sources, glorifies both the past struggle for independence, but also the current fight against jihadism. And we remember that in 2019, the Nigerien Minister of Cultural Renaissance to Soumana Malam Issa said that“we must find a hymn that can galvanize the population, be for us a kind of battle cry to touch our patriotic fiber”.
On the opposition side, the change of anthem is welcomed, but they mock the government’s stated desire to express freedom from France, the former colonial power, when Niger now hosts most of the soldiers. French in the Sahel.
In the streets of the capital Niamey, the inhabitants feel little concerned by this change. It must be said that between insecurity, inflation and the upcoming celebration of Eid el-Kebir, called Tabaski in part of Africa, changing the national anthem for them is not the most high priority.