15-year-old girl wins Nigeria Info’s debate

A 15-year-old girl, Mary Uke, has emerged as the winner of the maiden Nigeria Info FM’s national “I Beg to Differ” debate.

The debate, tagged, “Tournament of Champions”, and organised by the radio station, saw the intellectual contest among 16 participants who shared their knowledge on several topics.

After scaling through the hurdles, Mary and Oluwalade Demilade reached the final stage, convincing the judges on the topic, “Should Developed Nations Increase Financial Aid to Developing Countries?”, with the latter supporting the motion.

He said, “The top five fastest growing countries in the world in 2024 have all received hundreds of billions in financial aid. Foreign aid improves bi-lateral trades between the giver and receivers and the US is the largest giving economy which maintains top relations with giving states such as Ukraine, Israel and Ethiopia.”

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Responding, Mary said, “Financial aid does not equate economic growth, other factors must be in place such as good governance and structure.”

She added that foreign aid almost always only benefitted corporate city institutions instead of local and rural institutions.

At the end of the first debate, the debaters proceeded to debate the topic, “Is Global Media Coverage of the Israel-Gaza Conflict Biased?”, with Mary emerging as the winner with a score of 468 points while Demilade finished second with 439.5.

She went home with the grand prize of N2m and other gifts while Demilade finished with N1m and other gifts.

Also, the third-place winner, Adio Afolarin, who on Wednesday defeated Minanengiyeofori David, was presented with his prize money of N500,000 and other prizes.