Bello Withdraws From Jaw War; Accuses TLDs President, Otito-Jesu Of Compromising Debating Standards


By Tijani Abdulkabeer

The Sultan Bello Literary and Debating Society has announced its withdrawal from the ongoing debating competition (Jaw War) that started on Wednesday.

This decision was communicated in an official release that was made available to the public during the early hours of today (Thursday).

In the release signed by the executive members, the society explained that the decision to back out of the competition was driven by the judgment in the Jaw War opening ceremony which led to the defeat of the Sultan Bello in the first round by its opponent from the Nnamdi Azikwe Hall.

The executive body accused the Otito-Jesu Ayeni, TLDs president of manipulating the standard in debating competitions. It stated: “We believe that the essence of debating is being lost in the consistent unjustifiable scoring of speeches, and the steady shift in focus from content and logic to an evasive criterion that is alien to the lofty standard of public speaking and our society.”

“There is no logic to explain why the president of TLDS decided to exclude logic from the score sheets without running it through by the senators for voting as it is customary. When our constituency approached him for an explanation he claimed to replace “Logic” with “persuasion” based on his theory that persuasion is the core of debating. Mr. president seems to forget that persuasion is how well your logic convinces your audience even if it is invalid, half-baked, or outright illogical. This probably explains why our constituency would still lose a debate even after the Chief Judge, a veteran judge in UI, noted that ours and ABH’s were the most logical speeches of the day. While our opponents who were bashed for poor research etc. were declared winners of the round.”

It also accused the TLDS President of organizing Judges conference (LnDHeads) excluding senators as is customary which would have made them vetted and engaged the judges for this year’s tournament.

It added: “Further, it is rather surprising that the TLDS (The Literary and Debating Society) held a Judges Conference without senators (and heads) in attendance as is customary, eliminating every chance to get the calibre of judges enlisted for this year’s Jaw War and this was an opportunity for our society in particular to engage the judges on what they consider the best practices in public speaking.”

Meanwhile, efforts to have the TLDS President react to this development proved abortive as he was not available to attend to respond to messages and calls at the time of filing this report.

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