The Faculty of The Clinical Sciences is set to face The Faculty of Economics in the preliminary round of Jaw War 2025 as outlined at the Jaw War Press Conference which was held on the Saturday, 17th of May by 12 noon at the Infinix Resource Center, UI.
Babatimehin Peace, the President of The Literary and Debating Society UI, in his Press statement announced the timeline, theme, modalities and other changes to the competition.
The theme for this edition is Africa in The 21st Century and Beyond: Rethinking Power, Progress and Possibility. Speaking with Babatimehin Peace on the idea behind the theme, he said: “Looking at Africa’s policies from now, in the past and then the future especially examining where Africa is as a continent and where we are going moving forward. We’re rethinking the possibilities in Africa. One key detail is that each round, the first 4 rounds are themed. We’re looking at food security, malnutrition etc in the first round, the second round: education and others.”
This edition of Jaw War, the 11th in history, is scheduled to run from 16th September to 18th October.
The Draws were anchored by UCJ president, Ogunshile Olanrinu and the erstwhile TLDSUI president, Ogonna Okere.
This edition of Jaw War features a number of new modifications. Some of these include the automatic promotion of the Champions of the Faculty Category of the previous edition of Jaw War. This means that the Faculty of The Social Sciences will automatically qualify to the next round of the tournament.
In his statement, Babatimehin Peace also mentioned the introduction of an award Category tagged the Engr. Kayode Adegbayo (Olomo) Best Speaker Awards. While speaking with Babatimehin Peace, he explained that this is to reward speaker excellence.
Finally, hands-free microphones are being introduced to take the place of the hand-held microphones. Asiwaju said “We’re training global speakers and also for the aesthetics of the competition. The freedom and ease of movement of the speakers is also a bonus. Usually, with hands-held microphones, they have one hand restricted. But when the microphone is attached to their body, they have the freedom to gesticulate even better.”
Another one of these new technology additions is the projection of speaking time, he said “We have a lot of speakers who overshoot their time or underuse their time. It has always been guesswork. Sometimes they miss the bell. The timer screen is speaker focused.”
Speaking with the Press, Babatimehin Peace said “The press conference is this early so that the speakers from different constituencies themselves can have their topics early and start preparing for it. We’re trying to eliminate the stuttering that usually goes on at the competition. Also, the Jaw War competition is a global one and having ample time to prepare will improve the quality of the speeches both in content and delivery. Having the theme and others out of the way will also allow us to start reaching out to strategic sponsors early to partner with the society.”
You would recall that the last edition was fraught with conflicts regarding topics and confusion on the side to speak for. Babatimehin Peace told UIMSA Press that “Every society has been encouraged to open a mail address and send it to the general secretary. Before every round of debate, we’ll send a mail to confirm the side that every constituency is speaking on. Whatever they see in their mail is the side they’ll be speaking on. We’ll also take our time to prepare the packet that’ll be sent to constituency heads”
Finally he made a call to the public “We are calling on the general public to partner with TLDSUI to ensure that this year’s edition is a massive success. We need some support from people who believe in what we are doing to make that happen. We enjoin the students to look forward to a well-rounded competition.”
Afeezah Wojuade
