By Gift Nwaozor
As part of its efforts towards actualizing its active citizenship objectives, the Junior Chambers International held the 2019 edition of the Smith Waheed Gbolahan Inter-secondary School Debate at the First Bank building, Faculty of Agriculture on Wednesday, October 30th.
Participating in the two-round debate competition were Cenfex College, the International School, Ibadan, St Louis Girls’ School, Immanuel College, Methodist College and Pathfinder College.
At the end of the first stage, Baptist College and Immanuel College dropped out of the contest, while St Louis Girls’ School was disqualified at the end of the second stage, leaving the other three schools to struggle for championship.
Emerging winner of the inter-secondary debate was Cenfex College while International School Ibadan and Pathfinder College followed as first and second runner-up respectively. Lawal Kolapo, a student of the International School, Ibadan also emerged as the Best Speaker at the tournament.
Speaking on the performance of the pre-varsity students, Osoko Emmanuel, who was one of the judges of the debate competition commended their efforts in seeing to the delivery of their speeches. He however pointed out that some of their speeches were lacking in corroborated facts, one-sided and less convincing. He did not shy away from expressing his confidence in them as they continue to expose themselves to more public speaking experiences.
