By Foyin Ejilola
Not only has Jaw War successfully established itself as the biggest debate competition in the whole of Sub-saharan Africa, but it can also boast of being the most anticipated and attended debate contest in the whole of the University of Ibadan. It is not an unusual sight to see Jaw War speakers facing more than a thousand students as they deliver their speeches.
The 2021 edition of Jaw War is not an exception. Its anticipation was met with the same energy, if not greater, as the competition which was last held in 2019, could not hold in 2020 due to the pandemic and ASUU strike. The publicity was great and it roused the interests of many students to expect more than usual in this edition of Jaw War.
The first leg of the competition took place on Wednesday, September 29 at the New Faculty Lecture Theatre in the Faculty of Science, which is one of the biggest halls in the University of Ibadan that has the capacity of taking a large number of people. The competition that day was among the ten halls of residence in the University of Ibadan. The halls were debating in this order: Lord Tedder Hall versus Kenneth Mellanby Hall, Alexander Brown Hall versus Independence Hall, Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall versus Sultan Bello Hall, Queen Idia Hall versus Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Obafemi Awolowo Hall versus Ransome-Kuti Hall.
By the time the debate began, the hall was full to the brim as expected. By that time, virtually everyone present had removed their nose masks, due to the heat in the hall. The first actual woe of the event was the sound system. Many of the audience struggled to hear the speakers of that day. It was so bad that Erimola John from Independence hall was asked to restart his speech when he was halfway done and this caused a ruckus in the hall until it was agreed that David Salami also retakes his speech.
Another drama ensued after the winners of the first leg were announced. Tedder won with 87 points, Indy with 85 points, Zik with 88 points, Queens with 84 points, and Kuti with 95 points. Sultan Bello Hall Literary and Debating Society was displeased with the result of the competition that they published a statement announcing their withdrawal from the 2021 edition of the Jaw War competition on Thursday, September 30.
In their statement, they complained of two things: that the president of TLDS, Ayeni Otito-Jesu Joshua, excluded logic from the score sheet and replaced it with persuasion without running it by the senators for voting and a Judges Conference was held without the senators in attendance to engage the judges to be sure they are fit to judge speakers in the competition.
The TLDS president, Ayeni Otito-Jesu Joshua, responded to this in a statement made on Friday, October 1, following a senate meeting with the chief judge of the first leg, Dr Demola Lewis and the 25 senators of TLDS. In this statement, he blamed the previous scores which were described as exaggerated on a computational error. The new scores were published as thus: Tedder 72.66% – Mellanby 70%, Zik 73% – Bello 75%, Awo 79.33% – Ransome Kuti 79.66%, Indy 70.5% – ABH 73.5%, and Queens 72.33% – Idia 71%.
In the new scores that were published, Sultan Bello Hall and Alexander Brown Hall emerged as the new winners. However, on Saturday, October 2, Sultan Bello Hall’s TLDS released another statement, appreciating the effort of the chief judge and president and still standing on their decision to pull out of the competition which, they stated, was not made out of entitlement or desperation for victory.
From this drama, many questions have sprung up. First, why should logic be replaced with persuasion in an intellectual debate? Can a speech be impactful without logic? A foolish idea can be sold to people with the art of persuasion, therefore, for a competition like Jaw War which is also meant to impact students and listeners, this is not the right choice and it further drives home the point that Jaw War has been reduced to a mere war of punchlines and banters.
Furthermore, if Sultan Bello Hall had won in the first leg of the competition, would they have protested against the decision of the TLDS president of replacing logic with persuasion on the score sheet?
In the new scores that were released, Sultan Bello Hall and ABH, which was mentioned to have suffered a similar fate in the statement by Sultan Bello TLDS, emerged as winners. Does this mean that the president and the chief judge simply danced to the music of Bello’s protest? If they had not announced their withdrawal, it is probable that there would not be any reason to review the scores, does that mean that the scores which were arrived at due to computational error would be left like that?
Now that all these have happened, what happens to the prestigious Jaw War? Has the trust students and other people had in its manner of judging not be shaken? Is this drama worth bowing our heads or just laughable?
