Ibukunoluwa Dada

On the 15th of April, 2021, after waiting for a year due to the COVID-19 and some hours due to reason this reporter is not privy, the National Association of Agricultural Students (NAAS) Southwest Convention Debate Competition finally held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Conference Hall, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State. 

The hours’ delay was not a problem and everything seemed to be running smoothly until the results of the debate were announced and the debaters of the National Association of Agricultural Students, University of Ibadan (UI), came 4^th with 111 points out of the six participating universities: Ekiti State University (1st  with 119.5 points) Obafemi Awolowo University (2nd with 114.0 points), Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology (3rd with 112.5 points), Federal University of Oye Ekiti (5^th  with 100.5 points), and Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba (6th with 95 points). 

The debaters and representatives from UI stormed out of the hall into the hot sun whose heat they found more bearable than the allegedly flawed judging process which gave the skewed results. This prompted the NAAS UI president, Olajide Adeola, to submit a petition to the offices of the president of the NAAS Southwest and NAAS National via WhatsApp.

THE NATIONAL DEBATE COMMITTEE

Upon receiving the petition, the NAAS National President, Comrade Nwuguru Obinna N, set the National Debate Committee to investigation via the office of the National Academic Secretary, Galadima Zubairu K, who also chaired the committee of 11 persons: 5 members of the Executive,3 Ambassadors, 1 SA to the president and a Lecturer

The committee requested the complaints of NAAS UI, which was provided by the NAAS UI Literary and Debating Society and submitted by the NAAS UI President. They were:

1. The change in the timing of the debate on the day of the event i.e. the reduction of chief speaker’s time from 5 mins to 3 mins and that of supporting speaker from 3 mins to 2 mins with the announcement made at the commencement of the competition.
2. The second speaker from the winning school wasn’t audible at all.
3. The presentations from the schools didn’t follow the pattern of a debate. It was more like coming to explain to the audience in an informal manner.
4. The debate didn’t follow the proper sequence i.e Chief Speakers from each school present, then followed immediately by the Supporting Speakers from the same school.
5. Many of the debaters were not properly dressed, most were dressed casually in a striped shirt. It didn’t look like they were dressed for a debate competition.
6. The judges used were not the ones originally engaged. The ones originally engaged were absent which was why there had to be replacements.

After 25 days, on the 10th of May, 2021, the committee released a “Comprehensive Report On The Petition To Revisit The Result Of Naas Southwest” The report contains the complaints of NAAS UI, the Inquiries, Consultations, Findings, and a verdict of the committee amidst other things. 

THE SOUTHWEST ZONAL CHAIRMAN  

Prior to the release of the report, the Southwest Zonal Chairman, Comrade Success Ibitoye who had advised the NAAS UI president, which the president confirmed, published a press release on the 6th of May, stating his “great displeasure to the unwise decision of the NAAS National President and the sluggish conduct of the said committee handling the petition.” 

Stating his displeasure as regards the formation of the National Debate Committee and its processes, he wrote:

“…on submission of the petition, the National President without any prior notification or discussion on it to at least hear from me the zonal Chairman, took the petition himself to the national groups and assigned the Academic Secretary to handle the petition, although the NAAS constitution doesn’t have a say on that because no section of the constitution could backup that action. I was calm expecting the needful to be done.”

He went further to write about how the NAAS National President and National Academic Secretary gave him different reasons he couldn’t be on National Debate Committee upon his request: 

“after a while I made enquiry about the committte handling the petition and requested to be in the committee, a committee that I should have been added to as the Chairman of the concerned zone. The National President and the Academic secretary gave me uncorrelated reasons why I can’t be on the committee. The President said, the committee handling the petition is the academic committee and I can’t be a member of the committee while the Academic secretary told me there’s no committee handling the petition that he’s the one handling the petition and he’s just using some members of the academic committee to work with him on the petition. (Evidence of these are available on request).”

When this reporter asked him about these pieces of evidence via WhatsApp, he noted that the issue of the debate has been solved by the governing council on the 11th of May, hence needless to drag a resolved issue further. 

However, the Committee report had described the entire scenario too succinctly for one to ascertain what truly happened. The part of the report reads:

“The Academic Secretary went forward to engage the Southwest Zonal Coordinator/Chairman who was fruitful at first before taking a stand not to help.”

The inquiry section of the report that could have helped in making things clearer only corroborated the claims of the Comrade Succes Ibitoye to have been asked to give names and contacts, and his refusal 

This reporter reached the Academic Secretary, Comrade Galadima Zubairu, to ask about the debate and the names of the committee members, he replied:

“I understand your concerns but pls I will like not to make any comments regarding the Debate”

COMRADE GALADIMA AND THE NO-CAMERA DILEMMA

In the report, some of the findings of the committee seemed impossible for the magnitude of the Debate. The findings noted that there were no pieces of audio, video or picture evidence. the part of the report reads:

• ●      It was very hard finding out the audibility of the second speaker from the withheld winning school, because we had varying testimonies and no video or audio evidence to support the claim.
• ●      Also regarding dressing and presentations, we also had varying statement with no video, audio or pictures to support the claims.

To confirm, this reporter contacted the NAAS UI Literary and Debating Society (NAAS UI L n’ D) President, Mr Feranmi Kolawole via WhatsApp, and he had this to say: 

“As regards the part of no video evidence, I believe it to be completely false. Because, when the results were announced and we went haywire, I remember the Zonal Chairman…Success saying there was video and audio evidence of the whole debate and they would go over it again the event, that day. So when the report came out saying there was no evidence, I found it false.”

He went on to mention the possibilities of the committee not having evidence due to the same part of the petition mentioned above to have been too summarized to ascertain the exact happenings. 

This reporter contacted Comrade Success Ibitoye to ask if there was an official photographer/cameraman, hence the availability of audio, video and picture evidence, he answered in the affirmative. To answer the question “why the committee wrote in the report that there were no audio, picture or video evidence, this reporter referred to the Comrade Success Ibitoye’s 6th of May Press release mentioned above. There, he wrote:

“Adequate and appropriate findings haven’t been done, no picture or video evidence was requested by this said committee. The academic secretary only requested for about 6 contacts of those who were present at the convention to enquire from them, and I vehemently refused to give any contacts until now.”

Comrade Success Ibitoye was not the only one the committee didn’t ask for audio, video or picture evidence but the NAAS UI President as well. AGROPRESS asked him in a WhatsApp chat what questions or things did the committee request during the findings, he wrote: 

“Well, for this, I was only asked of the irregularities observed and that was provided to me by the L&D. That’s all.”

However, this reporter, couldn’t get anything susbtsantial from the National Academic Secretary, Comrade Galadima Zubair, as he maintained not to comment on the debate. 

This reporter went further to ask the NAAS UI and NAAS UI L n’ D President, if they have pictures or videos of the other speakers they referred to in the complaints, their reply was negative. They went ahead to note that the only pictures they took were of themselves and the videos of their speakers during the debate. And the videos have been posted on the NAAS UI Instagram page. 

To determine the possibility of the inability of the Committe to garner pieces of audio, video, or picture evidence, this reporter checked Social Media pages of the NAAS National body. 

This reporter found pictures posted by the National President, Comrade Nwuguru Obinna, on the Facebook page of the NAAS National body with the name “National Association of Agricultural Students (NAAS) Nigeria.”

The post was made on the 15th of April which was the day of the Debate. One would, then, wonder how the President has pictures of the event, with one of them showing some speakers, while the committee formed by the same person claimed otherwise. 

ARE YOU SATISFIED? 

Having confirmed gross miscalculations in the results of the debate, the verdict of the National Debate Committee, as in the report, reads: 

VERDICT

1. After all consultation, recommendations and intense scrutiny of the Southwest Zonal Debate I wish to announce the following verdicts
2. Adekunle Ajasin University (AAU) having scored a total of 150 points is hereby pronounced the 6thposition.
3. Federal University Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) having scored a total of 201 points is hereby pronounced the5th position.

EKSU 1st

UI 2nd

OAU 3rd

OAUSTECH 4th

FUOYE 5th and

AAUA 6th.

This reporter asked the NAAS UI L n’ D President if he is satisfied with the verdict, and he spoke extensively via a WhatsApp voice note: 

“The first shocker came when one of the judges told us while stating the modalities that the time had been slashed and they still said we would be penalized if we used above time. Compressing my 5min speech into 3mins wasn’t easy.”

“Also, most of those guys weren’t properly dressed. We– myself and my speaker– both wore a suit. Some of them didn’t and some of them didn’t even wear the proper tie. One of them wore this Vintage tie…you get–these fat vintage ties.”

“They were not even speaking as per standard debate style…I had the best introduction. I don’t know why the people that won…I don’t know the Chief Judge had a higher mark in term of introduced than me. I actually sang but I don’t see anything against singing as an introduction to a speech”  

“But then, one thing that actually struck me was the fact that: yes, the time was cut, but the school that won, EKSU…they didn’t struggle with it all. They came up, delivered perfect speech–both the Chief speaker and supporting speaker. So it kind of gave an air of the fact that they already knew that the time was going to be cut (from the start).”

“….And one thing made it completely biased–the fact that EKSU lecturer was the Chief Judge….So, no matter what the petition says, as long as nothing tangible  is done as regards that fact, it’s all biased to me.”

“I was looking at the petition and I was like these guys did not even meet us in these things… then, like my supporting speaker noted: the supporting speaker for the school, EKSU. We couldn’t even hear the guy at all.”

“The Chief speaker did something close to me, okay. She wasn’t bad. She was great, yes. But the supporting speaker, was way way behind my supporting speaker. They shouldn’t even have had a chance of winning, okay. They will have come up in the first three but not the chance of winning”

Though unsatisfied, in a group chat with the members of the Literary and Debating society that were present at the debate, the president, in his words, decided to let the sleeping dog lie, he wrote:

“…Especially the part on no audio or video evidence. Although, I don’t completely believe there aren’t. The president, Success said there were, on that day. But at this point, I believe we should just let sleeping dogs lie.”