Jarus: Hello all,

The moderators of this section have decided to introduce a monthly debate session as a way of raising the intellectual value of the section.

We are aware that debate goes on everyday here and indeed every thread is a debate, but the difference this would make is that it is going to be moderated and there shall be winners.

DATE:
We are proposing last Saturday and Sunday of every month (6-8pm Nigerian time, to be dubbed 'Weekend of Titans' or 'Political el-Classico' or any other fanciful name to add some colour to it)). First round on Saturday and final on Sunday. We are starting this October.

TOPIC:
The topic shall be drawn from contemporary political issues or any other topical issue. As much as possible, we shall avoid very sensitive and emotional topics.


COORDINATORS
The Mods shall be coordinators and will not be part of the panel of judges.

[
My partner will come in to chip in more things.

Your input and opinion are welcomed in the meantine.

UPDATE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2012


1, CHOOSING OF TOPICS
This shall be thrown open, suggestions taken from everyone, and topics arrived at by consensus. Topical and developmental issues shall be given preference. 2 topics shall be arrived at, one for first round, another for final. Or same subject but different angles as points of debate in first round and final.

2, CHOOSING OF DEBATERS
This can be by voluntary indication of interest and/or nomination by another member. At the end of the day, we shall settle for 4 debaters for each cycle(month). Topic will also play a role in settling for debaters.

4, DEBATE PROPER
Debate thread shall be opened at least 3 hours to the commencement, where the rules, brief Nairaland citation of debaters, list of judges, shall be posted. The thread will then be locked till 5 minutes to start of debate when the coordinators shall declare the debate open. The debaters can then post their arguments within 20 minutes. Then, the debaters will be given another 20 minutes to take on one another, fault opponents arguments etc. Then another 20 minutes for judges to throw their questions at each of the debaters and debaters to respond. Then we shall take 1 question from audience(viewers) based on first post, first recognized basis. Note that the viewer/audience rep is only to ask question and not endorse/fault an argument.

While the debate is going on, any comment other than from debaters, coordinators and judges shall be hidden and the poster risks 2 hours ban from Politics section. When it's time to take a question from 1 viewer/audience, the coordinator will announce.

Then the judges will compile their results and email to the coordinators, who will aggregate and announce the results on the thread.

We expect the exercise to take between 2-3 hours.

5, POST-DEBATE
Then the thread shall be declared open for regular Nairaland discussion and comments.

Gbawe: Well done guys. Good to note you have listened to the suggestion of some of us that the politics sections should be a more useful 'tool' to Nigeria and Nigerians , as an Arena of ideas, instead of the 'Jerry Springer' Stadium it currently is. With this move, you set a precedence for civil discussion that will hopefully be entrenched and accepted generally by users of this forum.

Jarus: The success or otherwise of the exercise and the ability to achieve the bigger picture of intellectualizing discussions here depends on everyone of us.

A good number of Nigeria's policy makers and pundits actually come here to read these stuffs. I know Pat Utomi does, I know el-Rufai does, I know many politicians do, that is why some of them have planted their boys here to project their image.

So, we need to raise the level of discussion on this forum so that the potential can be achieved.

Gbawe:

Totally correct. Jarus, I see you and OAM4J as decent guys. I am just surprised this has not happened earlier. I have been saddened that a powerful forum like this, which should naturally be used to put our leaders under pressure and make them understand we are their boss, is a congregation ground for rancour, e-fights and ethnic bigotry. Anyway, better late than never. As I said earlier, this may just set a precedence that will impact positively on how we discuss here. Good one guys.

Long One: Nice one, this means one can pick up one or two things instead of the utter chaos which is occasionally apparent, resulting in the drowning of good ideas.

Apart from announcing winners, is it possible to transform the solutions into something meaningful? Like, contact legislators/politicians or at least create ‘best practice’ solutions to known issues / some kind of knowledgebase for people in power? I know Jarus mentioned Pat Utomi and El rufai, but I mean people who are already there and capable of making a difference.
That way, even a Nairalander who finds him/herself in power one day, might remember this forum and put these ideas into practice.

JomoGbomo2: This is a welcome idea and i believe it will create a more friendly environment for us to share our views on our current political landscape.

And as a way to contribute, I will like nominate myself as a Judge in the first Debate session.

cheers

OAM4J: Thank you all for your support of this idea. We indeed want this debate to count and become a reference point to many of our politicians.

We want to get our panel of judges right. We need about Five people with at least 2 ladies. So we welcome more nominations. You can also nominate yourself.

I nominate Sisi_kill and Coogar among the judges.

Katsumoto:

This argument supposes that Nigerians may not have existed if there was no amalgamation. Surely there were people who resided within the boundaries of present day Nigeria before the amalgamation and would surely have been in existence if there was no amalgamation. If we accept British influence, there is nothing to suggest that being called a Biafran, or Oduan (for lack of better terms) would have been any different than being called a Nigerian. Surely, Seun could have called his website the Odualand. To throw that argument on its head; nothing stops Seun from creating a website for West Africa and as such Seun could have still created a website for the geographical area of 'Nigeria'.

Obinoscopy: All protocols duly observed.

My opponent is well verse and is an academic elite as is evidenced with his historical elaborations. But with all humility I will say he did not give us the proof that th 1914 amalgamation was a mistake. He just told about what led to the amalgamation and then went ahead to tell us the woes we are facing in this country. But he failed to relate the amalgamation (CAUSE) to our present troubles (EFFECT)

I'll also tackle some of his positions one after the other as time would so permit me.



Spain is a European country yet they are not a homogenous society. There are different ethnic groups, and they speak different language such as Basque, Catalan, Galician and Occitan. If you are adept with Spanish history, you will know there is a serious ethnic polarity and demand for self determination within ethnic groups in that country. The same can also be said of Turkey where there is an Islamic majority and Christian minority.

Katsumoto: No one knows how long the wars my opponent refers to would have gone on for. It didn't appear that any of the sides had a material advantage to subdue the other. The Fulani were restricted by the Bornu-Kanem empire. The Fulani and Yoruba had a series of wars with no one landing a decisive blow. The Yoruba themselves were not even united before peace was brokered by the British in 1892; they had been fighting the Kiriji war for 16 years.

Obinoscopy:

Seriously, I am yet to see where you were able to correlate the colonial amalgamation with all the problems we are facing as a nation. Maybe its because I am a debater and thus biased.

I have said it before that its our leaders that are to blame for the woes of this country and not the colonial leaders who have long gone. What we need is good governance and social justice!

coogar:

i was quite impressed too.....
obinoscopy's piece was more interesting - he delivered a good read from the onset and he was consistent all through! katsumoto(the japanese rebel) just went for the jugular with tonnes and tonnes of information and facts to process(there should have been a word limit)!

overall, it was a quality debate.....congrats to the both of them!

coded guy: Even though I already felt that the amalgamation was a mistake before the debate started I duff my heart for Obinoscopy. At a point he was already convincing me but the point where Katsumotu highlited the fact that as a result of the amalgamation there were too many diverse interest as per religion, ethnicity, political ambitions won it for me.

In conclusion for me the issue of the amalgamation will always come up because of the faulty political structure we are operating.

Once again, congrats to the two debaters they did justice. It was insightful.

Iaz93: Obinoscopy ur presentation was cool...katsumoto u'r good..
Excellent debate.
Mehn... I cud c brains at work..
Wonderful...

Obinoscopy:

So I almost convinced you

Thanks, I must say I learnt a lot from my opponent and the audience as well. Thats the beauty of a constructive debate.

I however still stand on my ground

chic2pimp: Well done Katsumo and Obinoscopy. Must say I was highly impressed most especially with Obino.

I have read quite a number of Kats posts so pretty much knew what to expect with regards to bringing his A game to the table.

Obino on other hand was a huge surprise because not only have I never seen nor read his posts before but also because I thought the Debate was highly Skewed in favour of Kats. Very Impressed man.

marion g: Quite interesting! They both did fantastic given how well they put forward their argument. Punch line upon punch line. @Katsumoto. You are good, it all seemed as if u had anticipated and prepared for this debate long before now. With the level of facts you tendered, i can only but salute. @obinoscopy. U where very cogent and i love the way you presented your points, concise and brief, quite convincing it was. Kudos to both guys, indeed it was educative. Looking forward to more of such.

Santino1: Great debate from both debaters...I have added more fact to my knowledge base on the amalgamation, all thanks to Kats. I'm particularly impressed with Obino as he defended an otherwise difficult subject with such persuasiveness. Kudos.

Thanks to Jarus, OAM4J and the entire Nairaland crew for making this happen..looking forward to the next edition

Sisi_Kill: Katz and Obinoscopy...guys, I am in awe of you two right now. You took a topic that seemed DOA and gave it life and had it spinning on its heads (or should I say spinning our heads). You guys did such a fantastic job, I am starting to think maybe it was Providence that I wasn't able to be on the judging panel because I gotta tell ya, I don't know if I would have been able to make up my mind....that's how good you both were. (I hope this admission does not come and bite me on the ass oh )

Thank you both for taking the time and effort to do this topic justice, don't wanna speak for all but I doubt anyone who's given this thread a thorough read through can say they haven't learnt anything or even had some concepts they once believed true...change a little.

Coordinators....So how does one say Bravo for a job well done without using trite words like ehmm....Bravo for a job well done? You guys have started something really great here...for the first time since I was ye high....I can safely say this is the first thread we've had on this section that didn't degenerate into the usual central market brouhaha!

Hopefully this kinda courteous and intelligent mode of discourse will carry over to none debate threads...Hopefully!

ayox2003: Obinoscopy took the debate like he was actually talking to people sitting in a "Nairaland Hall". Great delivery - also throwing rhetorical questions to the audience. I think he diverted all the blames to our leader while there are other cogent points like human resources, geographical influence and so on. Kudos!

Kats was very logical and in-depth. More like a thesis He took it from the scratch and gave it a good finishing. Kudos. But I think its was kinda lengthy. His further argument shows how really in-depth he is. I say kudos, again.

Kudos to the Mods and judges.

Truth be told, the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorate was a costly mistake.

To corroborate this topic, I wrote an article around March after the Catholic church was bombed in Jos. As it stands, those who brought us into this mess, our colonial masters, are facing the same problem. Scotland, the oil-rich part of the UK wants to be on its own. Although there are some similarities between a Scot and an English man, the differences would always give them a terra firma to have their own sovereignty. Unlike the Scots and every other Britons, there is no pinch of similarity between a Southerner and a Northern. The difference between them is as vast as the difference between a giraffe and a kangaroo . I mean, u can't just bring groups of people with an extremely different culture and religion together under the same abode and expect peace. No. People invest somuch ego into their culture, religion and territory that it could make cannibals out of them!

Anyway, hope is not lost. God bless Nigeria.



Frawzey

TRUTHTELA: I'm STILL in shock, I never knew that a SUBJECT could be discussed on nairaland, solely with FACTS and INTELLIGENCE, without the usual name calling, insults & RAZZ people taking it over. I wish the owner of Nairaland, take advantage of this debate and use it to REBUILD the IMAGE of this SITE & TAKE IT TO GREATER HEIGHTS. If SANITY has been RESTORED, I hope to be back from my SABBATICAL. Obinoscopy and Katsumo, you guys IMPRESSED me.

nitlad: Followed the debate yesteday, and I've gotta say it was awesome, (kudos to the debaters Obinoscopy and Katsumoto. Top blokes they are). And it was an excellently executed exercise too(give the kudos to Jarus for that). A few things could be done better though.
I thought Obinoscopy came out as the more spontaneous debater in light of his arguments and responses to rebuttals and questions while Katsumoto was well loaded for this (dude sure knows his onions).
Obinoscopy's perfomance is all the more surprising given that his was a side that on the face of it (at least that was my thinking before this debate) you would be hard pressed to find valid points. Yet he gave a masterclass from what presumably should be a doomed corner. Your reference to Somalia was particularly striking!
Kats inspite of your eggheadous perfomance (lol if there is anything like that), I'm not sure you succeeded in undeniably tying any of the problems bedevilling this nation to the 1914 Amalgamation throughout the duration of the debate. I stand to be corrected on this, perhaps I missed it.
I personally believe amalgamating the Northern and Southern Protectorates is/was a historical tragedy, but this debate made me realise that the problems in this country didn't necessarily stem from amalgamation.
All in all, it was an insightfully knowledgeable and exhilaratingly brilliant exercise!

damas11111: This was a wonderful idea and a very educative debate. Though Katsumoto may have gotten the nod as the winner but I'd give it to Obinoscopic for his efforts that even got many thinking (and believing) that the amalgamation may not have been a mistake afterall. I'll say anyone arguing against the topic is always going to be at a disadvantaged position given what many (or most) Nigerians have considered a "mistake" for many years ago. Kudos to the two for a well laid out defence of their position.

tpia@:
Your point is?

The name dropping adds to your salary somehow?

berem: Debate ke? Garriman, you better stop disturbing yourself o! when political section is being heated up on daily basis with ethnic bigotry infested threads and comments, who has time for debate? mtscheew! you better come up with something more entertaining like having a get together e-party. it's long overdue. moreover, what Seun needs is what will generate traffic for him and not one yeye debate. abi you don see debate generate traffic before?

Gboliwe:
What do you know about debates and traffic generation? That debate generated traffic and was also unifying. One method to be considered to reduce the ethnic fights in this section is promoting the debate.

Gboliwe:
What do you know about debates and traffic generation? That debate generated traffic and was also unifying. One method to be considered to reduce the ethnic fights in this section is promoting the debate.

berem: Of course i know nothing about debate. I have hated debate all the days of my life.Ok.

If you think the debate is gonna stop ethnic bigotry on nairaland, then lets watch and see.
The debate served as a MODEL of how discussions in this section are meant to be. Discussions are meant to be civil and logical. Devoid of tribal slurs and infantile abuses.

If indeed you still eager for debate, then you guys should put back Jarus as a moderator! shikena!are you saying that those we have as MODs lack the intellectual and organisational abilities needed to organise D debate??