John Oludele: “I Think Everybody Should Just Move Forward and Focus on What Is to Come, Rather Than Dwell on What Happened in the Past.”

In a 28th of July Interview, the University of Ibadan Medical Students’ Association Press sat across from the UIMSA Sports Secretary, Mr John Oludele, speaking candidly on the tenure thus far and the status of previously announced plans. This is the first of a two-part exclusive interview with the student leader. 

Hello, good evening. My name is Osakwe Okojie, I’m with UIMSA Press. I’m here with Oludele John to conduct an interview as part of UIMSA Press’ tenure reviews. Okay, I’d like to start. Hello, how are you doing?

I’m good. Let’s just go straight to the point.

Yeah, we can start with the obvious. Let’s see, what’s your opinion on your recent three-week suspension as sports secretary on the recommendation of the Senate Committee on Discipline?

I think the disciplinary committee report that stated that I missed, I think, four of the accused five meetings. So, I don’t really have anything much to say. Of course, I would have reasons for many of these, but I don’t think any of that is relevant at this time.

What’s most important is that sports in UIMSA should be upheld at the highest level possible, and that’s my priority. Thank you.

Okay, yes, but in that sense, can you still state for the public what led you to miss those meetings, and do you find the verdict fair?

Well, okay, this is what I would say. The Constitution is very clear on the punishment for missing consecutive meetings without notice. The reason why a notice was not sent was because I did not plan to miss the meetings, and for most of the meetings, as accused, they were online emergency meetings.

Two of the four were online emergency meetings where I joined the meeting, but I did not sign in, so I was considered absent. According to the standing order, if you don’t sign in, you’re absent, but I joined the meeting and I did not sign in. That was because I was in transit, and I was considered absent.

Then the last one was the most recent ordinary sitting, where, six hours to the meeting, I sent a notice of emergency absence because I had a running stomach and I had fever. I knew that the case of my discipline would be discussed, so I planned to attend the meeting, but because I had a running stomach, I could not attend, and I sent a notice. When the disciplinary committee was carrying out their hearing, they stated that there is no evidence to point to the running stomach and the fever that I had.

Therefore, they deemed my absence and my letter untenable. However, I felt it should have been fair to state, at least in the report, the reasons I gave. For a more comprehensive report, I felt that the reasons I gave for my absence should have at least been stated in the report.

But whichever way, at the end of the day, the disciplinary committee holds their sovereignty, and they have the authority to give justice. While the senate members, the senators of the house, can vote on it, and by the vote, it was 21 vs 2, so there’s really nothing much to say in that regard.

This weekend, the UIMSA executive council celebrated one year in office. On that note, how would you describe your tenure thus far, and what are the significant pluses and minuses that you can identify?

On a positive note, I can say that sports in UIMSA is currently at one of its best levels, despite the fact that we’ve lost reputable talent in the graduating 2K21 class. Despite that, we are still able to uphold sports in UIMSA across board. Going from football to volleyball to basketball to chess and scrabble, we still hold some of the best players.

We’ve tried to, consistently because finances have been a major challenge in creating events, but I’ve ensured that the athletes are actively involved in trainings at the very least. The results are quite apparent in our tournament performance. That was the 4th place in the male Seals Cup, and 2nd place in the female Seals Cup.

Overall, that’s not a bad performance. That shows that UIMSA is still performing at the highest possible level in the University of Ibadan. It cuts across board to ensuring active training, even the call for athletes, consistent athletes training, and every sport really, the UIMSA Chess and Scrabble leagues and everything.

Just to make sure that sport is still running, despite the apparent lack of funds and the prolonged tenure complicating things. That’s what I can say so far.

And what can you say about the minuses? You mentioned only the pluses so far.

I think the most obvious minus is just the inability to execute some events, majorly because of no funds. That’s the most obvious minus. I had plans to create a lot of events during the tenure.

My plan was to first of all, ensure that athletes are training, and then if athletes are training, have events for athletes to compete, and end the tenure with Ulympics and Award Night. But the tenure is very long, and the length of the tenure is an obvious problem when it comes to distributing logistics for different events. We try our best to do low-budget events, while upholding it at the highest standard possible, and having athletes actively participate in sport in UIMSA

That’s what I can say so far about the negatives

You’ve discussed training already. Just for some clarity, which athletes or which sports are currently training within a structured UIMSA program?

Currently, I cannot speak for all sports. For instance, in track and field, we had a call for athletes. Up until the middle of this year, the track and field athletes consistently trained at Awo Stadium.

That was in preparation for a potential NiMSA attendance. But since it looks like NiMSA has not yet structured itself for the event, and it looks like logistics, even if the event holds, in a far place, logistics might be a problem. And also, the heavy academic workload of some classes, the track and field training has not continued. But everything was structured, I set up the track and field team, I set up the captains, I set up every single part of the team, and it was running very, very well.

Things will resume, because Ulympics is coming close. And of course, for football, the point is that the players actively train. We have players, the clinical players, they play here, they play in ABH Football League, they play the weekly football tournament. They just came back from SEALS Cup.

Apart from inter-faculty coming up soon, everybody is doing their little football. But the pre-clinical teams actually play very consistently. You know, they have class training sessions through the captains and the coaches, the sport directors of the class team.

The pre-clinical teams train; they train consistently. I can speak boldly of 2K27 in their FOP and their own training. 2K28, 2K29, they have a lot of matches. 2K28 is preparing for Survivors Cup, 2K29 also, they train. I have not visited their training session in 2K29 yet, but I plan to visit their next training session. So, yes, I’ve ensured that.

There has been a hurdle for the female team. So, we’ve created the structure for the female team. We trained, we began training before the female SEALS Cup. And the players turned up, the selected players turned up for the female SEALS Cup. They have the structure, we trained, and that gave rise to the performance in second place for the SEALS Cup. 

Of course, there is no training for chess because chess already has its own structure; I’m talking about UI Chess. For instance, UCH Chess conducted a training session recently. UI Chess executives are currently organising multiple training sessions. So, I don’t think there is a need. We already have highly established athletes in UIMSA. Come any tournament, we can create a structure for performance in that tournament, representing UIMSA or Clinical Sciences.

There is a chess and scrabble league going on currently, although we have some issues with planning for the chess league, which will be resolved soon. But the scrabble league is going on fine. The organisers of the scrabble league are the captains of the team.

So, yes, across every sport, the volleyball team, we recently trained the fresh 2K29 class. And 2K27, as part of their FOP, is organising their volleyball class tournament. From time to time, we organise training with the preclinical teams to integrate them into volleyball. While we, already on the clinical arm, we have our trainings three times a week, sometimes four times a week. So, I can speak across the sports. 

Basketball is a little bit of a problem because the captain of the basketball team is in a difficult posting so I have not engaged her yet. She is preparing for an MB 3. I have not engaged her on that but I can confirm that most of the female basketball players in UIMSA play consistently. And the clinical team, now that the basketball boards have been repaired, they also play from time to time. The point overall is that in a place where there is no structure, in teams where there is no structure, I establish a structure.

And then I ensure that the athletes are consistently training in preparation for any tournament, like Interfaculty coming up. Or like the Inter-MSA, the one we had against Lead City. In preparation for any event of such, we can present a structured UIMSA team.

That is the point of everything. And I have tried my best to ensure that. 

You have discussed the UIMSA Chess and Scrabble Leagues already in this meeting. Regarding these leagues, there was publicity around the UIMSA Chess and Scrabble Leagues months ago. And I think after some false starts, the leagues eventually did start. But right now, like you stated, things aren’t so clear. What is the current status of the UIMSA Chess League and the UIMSA Scrabble League?

The UIMSA Scrabble League is running very fine. I think the only hurdle we encountered was that we had some clinical students having to go home during the break, and they are back now. And one of the clinical students travelled to Igbo-Ora. But apart from that, the league is running very fine. The league will soon conclude.

They have their results uploaded to the website. And everything is really fine with the Scrabble League. But with the Chess League, per execution, we encountered some challenges because chess is a highly peculiar sport. And there are so many specifics, there are so many details. You might have an idea of how a league should be. But during execution, you realise that you have to do it another way. So yeah, we encountered some challenges in the execution of the Chess League.

As per the competitiveness of the league, one. And the fact that online play completely affects the feel of the tournament, of the league negatively. In the sense that there are so many other factors apart from just the skill of the person that are tested. Like your network can affect your performance. You can have technical issues, and so on and so forth. You can misclick. So many other factors in the online play that affect performance.

Given the fact that most of the tournaments we play, standard tournaments, are over-the-board tournaments and I’m trying to uphold chess at the highest possible level, I think it fits that the Chess League should be halted while we plan a proper one-day event where all the games will be played in a round-robin format with arbitration to prevent cheating. Just a standard over-the-board tournament. So yeah, that’s the issue we encountered with it. We are trying to fix it. We are trying to fix the date into the schedule of UIMSA also. And we’ll see how that goes.

So to be clear, was the Scrabble League physical or online?

The Scrabble League was physical. But the results were uploaded online.

Given that the Scrabble League was physical, why exactly was the Chess League conducted online? I mean, knowing all these challenges that you have already spoken about.

No, the difference was that, first of all, establishing the Scrabble League. When I met with the team, we were supposed to put the Scrabble League in place. The team explained to me why a virtual Scrabble League cannot work. Because Scrabble League is totally different from Chess. Very different. With Scrabble, cheating is even undetectable. It’s even worse. You can sit down with a dictionary and pick answers, and nobody is going to find out. And then there’s the time, and there’s the network. And the rules too. The rules in online Scrabble. And then the proper platform. A recognised platform, the recording of results. There are so many issues that the planning team of Scrabble League pointed out to me. That made me reach a resolution early that an online Scrabble League cannot work.

However, for Chess, I play Chess personally. And I know that we usually have some one-day tournaments. And I knew that on the platform, there is already a structure for leagues.

On the Lichess platform, there is a structure for leagues. You can have your leagues there. And I presumed that it is very possible to use that structure to conduct the event. And I also wanted something that would be directly accessible to the sponsors. That is IMSG. IMSG-UK has been really helpful. They helped in securing the event, sponsoring both leagues. So I felt, because we had big chess enthusiasts among our sponsors and somewhere where they can even connect with chess players, some of the UIMSAites, top-performing UIMSAites, that was what I envisioned for the Chess League. We came up with a short time control, such that cheating becomes more difficult.

Five-plus-three time control. And we came up with other things. But you have your idea, and there is implementation.

And during execution, we tried our best to fix one or two things. But over the course of the league, we found out that we can’t really fix those things. And just to uphold the integrity of the tournament, it’s best to convert everything into a physical tournament.

But regarding these challenges you brought up about Scrabble, with cheating online and difficulties with network and such, and a standard unified platform. These exact challenges exist within Chess. And I can say personally that I did discuss this with you in the build-up to the UMSL Chess League. So, I mean, what does it mean to us to be at this point right now? Where we are eventually having to revert to physical.

I mean, what exactly has caused this? And in the sense of you wanting to share games with the sponsors, that is IMSG. I want to confirm, were the links to any games while the league was played virtually actually sent to the sponsors for them to view those games?

First of all, I never said I wanted to share games with the sponsor. That’s totally wrong. What I said was that I view it as a way to connect some of them online.

You said you wanted them to follow online.

I said to connect, that’s the word I used. I used “to connect them online on the platform with some of UIMSA’s finest chess players.” That’s exactly what I said. And of course, even if no link has been sent to them yet, they can always view it. I’ve mentioned this to them multiple times, that we have some of the best chess players in the whole of UI playing in UIMSA. So, of course, it’s a virtual league. as chess players, we know how the online feel is, they are not presented physically. The actual plan was that on the award ceremony day, I’ll have them online, attend the award ceremony online, and if possible, play games online with the chess players. That was the point of everything, that’s what I meant. Yes, we discussed some of these challenges with you just before the tournament started. But what exactly I would say to that is, as I said, there is a big difference between scrabble and chess.

Now, chess is already established online. We have platforms recognised worldwide to handle chess. And they have tournaments, they have league format, they have everything.

For each of the issues, we came up with solutions. So, cheating might be a problem; then put the time in blitz time control. Of course cheating in blitz is way more difficult.

Blitz time control does not negate cheating.

I never said it negates cheating.

No, you speak as though it has a reduced effect.

Can I complete my response to the question? You can also cheat physically. You can’t totally eradicate cheating anyway. Anybody can decide to use an anal plug physically.

Are you stating categorically that anal plugs are a legitimate method of cheating? Is that what you’re saying here?

I think you’re digressing from the point of the discussion.

I don’t know, I want to be clear. You’re saying something; are you saying that UIMSAites can use anal plugs or something?

The point of my discussion is that I think it’s better to just be very frank and direct. Now, you can’t totally eradicate cheating. Of course, over the board makes it easier to eradicate cheating. But I explained clearly to you that having the tournament physically over a specific period of time is going to involve plans for logistics. Apart from logistics, the envisioned format for the tournament was a virtual league.

We already have an established platform for chess virtually. That is not the same thing for scrabble. There’s already Lichess, and there’s already chess.com. Of course, there are technical problems.

There’s the Internet Scrabble Club online. Or does that change things?

As I said, we already have an established… I gave multiple clear reasons why scrabble… Why scrabble changed to physical format at the beginning of the tournament. I gave a lot of clear reasons. So, it was even totally different from chess. Apart from the fact that I did not even play scrabble. If I played scrabble, I would most likely have started it physically.

And the explanation from the team of organisers as to why the scrabble tournament could not hold online: the difference between that and chess is that, first of all, we have a recognised—I also talked about the rules in scrabble—but for chess, we already have a recognised platform where everybody actively plays chess. Now, creating a link, sorting out pairings would not be a problem because the platform already caters for that. Keeping track of the event, of the games, assessing the games of the players, the records, would not be a problem.

And of course, people would want to even watch the games of top players in the UIMSA League. Those things would not be a problem because it would be sorted out by the platform, the chess platform. That was the point of it. That was the envisioned idea of a virtual league, apart from the fact that it saves us a lot of logistic costs. Instead of spending money on logistics, we can use that to actually provide, apart from the payment, the monetary reward, proper awards to the participants of the league.

So those were the things. There were so many things in consideration. There was a reason why it happened to be virtual. And during the execution of the virtual link, it was the organisers that reached out and explained a lot of challenges being faced. And the problem posed by these organisers was because, of course, in chess, hierarchy is deemed very, very important. And when a certain order in a tournament affects some of the top-performing players, then the organisers of the event are always concerned. That happens at every stage in chess, even at the international stage. Because they use that, when some of the rules and so on affect the top-ranking players, it brings everybody to the knowledge that some things need to be changed. And that is exactly what happened.

I had a lot of some of the best players in UIMSA complaining about this. And these are people who have served as captains of UI and vice-captains of UI Chess Team. And even you, who served as the UCH Chess Captain and still currently serve as a UI Chess Executive. So, of course, that is the reason why it was deemed that it is not too late to make a change, to revert to physical tournaments. And I think that now that everything has been put into consideration and the tournament itself has been converted to a physical tournament, I think everybody should just move forward and focus on what is to come, rather than dwell on what happened in the past.

So that’s that about the Chess and Scrabble League.

Dialogue has been edited for clarity and readability.