A championship expected to foster the intellectual capacity of
students and prepare grounds for budding student politicians in Nigerian
universities will be hosted by the University of Calabar (UNICAL), an
official said.
The Dean of Students Affair of UNICAL, Prof. Eyong Ubana Eyong, made
the plan known during an interactive session with newsmen in Calabar on
Tuesday.
The First All Nigeria Universities Debating Championship billed for
October 20 26 will precede the Sixth Pan-African Universities Debate
championship which the university will also host from November 29 to
December 8, Eyong said.
He said the debate was an all students affair to promote the culture
of debate in tertiary institutions, where the culture of listening,
dialogue and acceptance of superior argument to change the course of
action were encouraged.
He said that the theme of the debate would be “Corruption, Insecurity
and National Development’’, to reflect Nigeria’s current challenges.
Also, Mr David Ejim, a student debater, said the debate would be
recorded and streamed on the social media for students at home due to
the current strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities.
Ejim, who will feature in the tournament for UNICAL Debating Club, said the institution was hoping to host to win.
He said that the debate was part of the development of young people in Nigeria.
He said that 11 universities out of the 102 universities in Nigeria
had registered for the tournament, which would use the British
Parliamentary Debate format to encourage critical thinking and
discourse.
In his speech, Mr Franklin David, the Chief Adjudicator for the
debate, said each of the participating institutions would present two
debating teams and one adjudicator at the championship.
He said the idea was to help the students in critical thinking and tolerance of opinion.
“In Nigeria we are used to criticising policies of government and
politicians, but in this debate we will also not only criticise but
proffer solutions.”
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