Remarkable debate competition marks AU golden jubilee

Saturday saw an eventful debate event to mark the African Union’s 25th anniversary. The debate competition was attended by 15 teams from Uganda and 25 teams from Rwanda. Six motions revolving around the African Union and matters concerning Africa as a continent were debated with two Rwandan schools emerging finalists.Gashora Girls Academy managed to beat last time debating winners, Lycée de Kigali with the latter looking to have overlooked the chances of their opponents beating them.“Look at all the civil wars Africa’s people have gone through for all these decades. With an efficient African Union, these challenges could be overcome,” tussled out a Gashora Girls proposer while debating the motion, “The African Union has been more of a failure than a success.” Speaking on behalf of iDebate Rwanda, Jean Michel Habineza said that the performance by the debaters was one to reckon pointing to the fact that Rwandan schools outwitted their Ugandan counterparts who were billed favourites.“We have witnessed an unbelievable event today. We are very happy with the way our schools have represented. Though they still have a lot to learn, they really showed good confidence when they debated out their points,” Habineza said.Habineza added that it was not only the best teams that were awarded for their performance but also best speaker for the competition which was won by Ebise Emiru, a student from St. Mary’s College Kisubi in Uganda. He said he was surprised by the news of being named the best speaker and that he was glad because he learnt many things.“IDebate Rwanda team in cooperation with Writing Our world and Pan African Movement started the inaugural debate for the African Union (AU) 50 year’s jubilee debate competition,” said Habineza.He added that the African union’s celebrating of 5 decades of existence since 1963 was a golden opportunity for the Youth of Africa to be able to debate about the effectiveness of the African Union while at the same time thinking hard about how to make the dream of the founding fathers a reality, how to bring Africans together in the spirit of oneness.There will be another of the kind on May 25, in Uganda where a team from here will also travel to engage in a similar debate and hopefully win, according to Habineza. This time, the students will also participate in a community service clean up as a way of promoting the spirit of volunteerism and community initiative.