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Nadia Mutisi
While a lot of people all over the world have taken the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to rest, procrastinate, scroll endlessly through Twitter and Instagram, keen African debaters have disallowed themselves such indulgencies choosing instead to enter online debate leagues.
The Zimbabwe Online Debate League (ZODL) founded by Maison Maphosa in September 2019 pioneered the emergence of online tournaments in Zimbabwe.
This was an idea well ahead of its time and one that has allowed some of Zimbabwe’s greatest minds to battle it out especially during the current lockdown.
Asides from the ZODL, the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Debate Society hosted its first online tournament, JuXtApOsE during April 2020 — thanks to Ebenezer Kudita, the debate society’s current president, Charity Makhala, the Chief Adjudicator and Maison Maphosa as the tab master.
Abena Otou and Lehakoe Masedi, Ghanaian and South African citizens respectively were the overall champions of the tournament.
Also noteworthy was the Nuditate Tournament 2020, an online tournament, the brainchild of Ghanaian Romeo Koduah. The tournament targeted novice debaters and aimed to identify talent in emerging debaters.
These are just a drop in an ocean of tournaments that spring up each week enabling young Africans to engage in intellectual discourse.
I say young Africans as these tournaments are well participated with a sphere of influence reaching as wide as Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and even Malaysia.
The motions have been wide-ranging, from policy debates, questioning the efficacy of governments in tackling issues to do with the Gini-co-efficient and reducing the wealth gap as well as debates focused on trying to attain social cohesion bringing to light topical issues such as cultural appropriation as well as identifying the challenges faced by sub-cultures.
Zimbabwean debaters have dominated these platforms heavily both as speakers and as adjudicators. The debate circuit has proven to be vast not only in terms of impeccable gender representation but the presence of young debaters with some still in high school.
Among these are the likes of Rumbidzai Siyawamwaya and Mukudzei Madzivire, both pro-debaters adjudicating tournaments that see the participation of university students.
The likes of Dalitso Ndlovu have left an indelible mark on the circuit breaking into the finals of the JuXtApOsE tournament as well as being identified among the best adjudicators in the Nuditate tournament among others.
The University of Zimbabwe Debate Society boasts of several noteworthy achievements, with the current president, Ebenezer Kudita along with the former president, George Mhlanga making it to the finals of the previous Zimbabwe Online Debate League.
Of course, this is a minor achievement in comparison to their activities on an international platform.
Antony Chiwota as the current Teams Captain of the society showed his prowess as a speaker and a debater by breaking into the finals of the JuXtApOsE tournament together with Kaiju Diteko.
To add on to the list of accolades and to show that the Debate Society has clearly been doing something right, Nadia Mutisi and Tapiwa Darlington Mhungu grabbed second place in the Nuditate Tournament making an impressive debut on the regional debate scene as they are both first year students at the University of Zimbabwe.
They received the awards of Best Overall Speaker and Third Best Speaker respectively.
Zimbabwe’s debate circuit is definitely a beacon of hope for the nation as it is clear that there are many rising leaders with both sensibility and eloquence.
It is only the hope of these keen debaters and adjudicators that their talent and devotion to the sport is noticed by their tertiary institutions as well as corporations that can partner with them, the next World Debate Champion could be in their midst.
Online Reporter