Oreoluwa Ogunnaike, a fourth-year medical student, emerged as the Best Speaker, SouthWest Nigeria, at a section of the Miss One Nigeria Contest, which took place at the Jamie Pajoel International Youth Leadership Conference, yesterday, March 8th, 2025, at the Pistis Event Centre, Lekki.
Miss Ogunnaike, who walked away with a substantial portion of a 1 Million Naira prize pool, bagged her win having qualified from two previous stages. The finals featured a parliamentary debate, with three speakers per side, arguing the motion, “Women in Leadership: Should Quota System be Mandatory for Gender Equality in the Workplace and Governance?”.
According to her, “The Miss One Nigeria competition has just kicked off with auditions held February 28th. We started off with about 50 semifinalists with two preliminary debates (March 5th and 6th) to yield 12 then 6 debaters”. The process involved; Online applications and a physical audition at Monty Suites, Lekki with Delphine Okoronkwo, Anthonia Ahanor, Hajiya Amina Ladidi Suleiman, Mike Eze-Nwalie (aka Pretty Mike of Lagos), Yemi Cregz; Debate preliminaries via Google Meet on March 5th, with about 50 participants and 2 judges (Anthonia Ahanor and Violet Ejiata); Public speaking training sesh with Joyce Daniels; and Semifinals via Google Meet. The debate competition is one of several parts of the Miss One Nigeria Contest, with follow-up events to be announced soon.
Concerning the finals, she added, “Being first speaker of the opposition meant I had to draft and internalize a 3-minute speech and prepare rebuttals (the rebuttal round was later cancelled due to the event extending for much longer than expected) within 24 hours”.