By; Yemi Alesh
The Literary and Debating Society, University of Ibadan (TLDS) held a press conference on Saturday, June 16th at the Tedder Hall Senior Common Room. The society, which is the union of all literary and debating societies in the varsity and anchor of the popular Jaw War debate competition, entertained the Union of Campus Journalists and the general public in a conference where they expressed their stance on the forthcoming Jaw War debate competition, its theme, fixtures and schedules.
Mr. Ayeni OtitoJesu, the Public Relations Officer of The Literary and Debating Society (TLDS) stated that the society is working towards having a strategic partnership with the University management, in the celebration of her seventieth anniversary.
According to Mr. Ayeni who read the press statement, the theme for this year Jaw War is ” The Nigerian Dream: Thoughts and Actions ; Celebrating U.I at 70. “This theme, based on substantial analysis, reflects the current situation of our country as we will be debating prospective solutions, policies and philosophies, necessary in making the Nigeria of our dream”, the Public Relations officer said.
The calendar for the debate competition was equally given as follows; Preliminaries (September 26th, 27th and 28th); Quater-Finals (October 10th and 12th, 2018); Semi-Finals (October 19th, 2018) and Finals (November 8th, 2018)
The society promised a bigger and better edition of the debate competition. Mr. Ayeni stated: ” Jaw War will be made transparent and overt. With all sense of responsibility, we promise Uites that this year Jaw War, as ever, will be bigger, better and stronger. We will make committed and astute speakers who will be leaders of tomorrow”.
Certain members of the press raised questions on whether the society has any mechanism in place to protect the freedom of speech of its speakers and defend them, should the university management find any speech delivered by a speaker as offensive or bringing the varsity into disrepute. The President of the society, Mr. Sadik Oluwagbenga carefully stated that the union stands for freedom of speech and will only “support” any speaker that falls into such mishap, after careful considerations of the peculiarities of the case. He however noted that every speaker must first ensure his speech is “politically correct” and be ready to principally own up for the consequences of his statements.
On the issue of judges’ credibility and the finality of their decisions, Mr. Sadik said, “On judging, we realized that there were a lot of irregularities and since then, the society has been working to make sure that does not happen again. So, one of the things we are doing is to first revise the modalities of Jaw War itself. To tackle this issue of judges not being informed about the Jaw War modalities and processes, there would be a Judges’ Conference, where our speech coach and staff adviser, Dr. Demola will lead the charge and the judges themselves will be part of this discussion.”
Meanwhile, the President of The Literary and Debating Society stated that it is very unlikely for the decision of the judges to be reviewed. As far as the modalities of the society are concerned, judges’ decisions are final and even though the modalities are going to be reviewed, there is no guarantee the revised modalities will allow for a review of judges’ decision .
Mr. Sadik Oluwagbenga also used the medium to inform the members of the public in attendance about the British Parliament Public Speaking training which has kick started and would continue to hold on Saturdays at the Student Affairs Conference Room. .
