Nigerians have joined the rest of the world in ushering in the year 2019.
Earlier, Sydney and Hong Kong put on stunning fireworks displays in a spectacular welcome to the New Year, among the first in a wave of celebrations for billions around the world.
Australia’s largest city organised its biggest-ever fireworks display, using a record amount of pyrotechnics as well as new effects.
Colours lit up the city’s skyline for 12 minutes and dazzled the more than 1.5 million spectators who packed the harbour front and parks.
PETER PARKS / AFP
An earlier thunderstorm did not dampen the spirits of revelers who camped out at vantage points, some since the morning.
To mark the international year of indigenous languages in 2019, the harbour also hosted a ceremony celebrating Aboriginal heritage that included animations projected onto the bridge’s pylons.
In Hong Kong, hundreds of thousands of revelers packed the streets on both sides of the city’s Victoria Harbour for a spectacular 10-minute firework show.
Some $1.8 million worth of pyrotechnics bathed the city’s skyscrapers in a dizzying array of colours accompanied by a score that included Auld Lang Syne sung in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.
ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
In Nigeria, many Christians took to their various churches where night vigils held to herald the new year.
While some Nigerians took to the churches, there were others at city centres and parks where official countdown concerts took place.
The One Lagos Fiesta was one of the events put together to usher in the new year, with various artists and performers thrilling revelers who thronged to the venue of the fiesta put together by the Lagos state government.
And when the clock struck 12am signaling the berth of a new day, Nigerians across the country especially in Lagos, took to the streets in jubilation. At certain centres around Nigeria’s economic hub, major firework displays lit up the skies as each-one bad the other “Happy New Year”.
President Urge Nigerians To Vote Without Fear
President Muhammadu Buhari has in his New Year Message reminded Nigerians that there are new opportunities to be explored in 2019.
Buhari who reminded Nigerians of the polls in 2019, told the people that the election is not a do or die affair, hence, they must not approach the process with fear.
The President made the call in a New Year Message sent out on Monday, December 31.
According to the President, 2019 is a very significant year in the nation’s history and as such Nigerians must brace up for the new moral grounds to be broken.
