Winners Emerge In Abuja School Debate, Poetry Competition

Winners have emerged in the 2022 edition of Abuja Literary Teen Arts Festival (ALIT-TEENFEST22) secondary school debate and poetry slam competition. The competition in its fifth edition with the theme “The Struggling Thriving Artist” is a follow-up of the 2021 theme, “Making Art Work.”

The winners of the debate are Adrian Oghenetega Anireto from Premiere International School; Joy Attah, second runner up from Glorious Destiny Educational Foundation; Sunday Praise, third place from Kings Farourite Education School in Abuja. While winners for the poetry competition are Joy Olarenwaju, winner; Bella Ogwuche took second place and Abdulrazaq Salihu emerged in third place.

14-Year-old Adrian Oghenetega Anireto in SS1, expressed excitement over the victory, saying “I am very happy. I think we won from our gestures and the way we were showing how much we knew about our points led us to victory. I saw other schools using paper, but we didn’t really use paper or read off from it.

Speaking on next competition, he said, “I think we should buttress our points more, and maybe keep the line that we are going strong, but we should add more points and examples and express it.”

According to the organisers, the 2022 edition focuses on teen creative engagement in accessing potential livelihoods by equipping them with the information, skills, resources and networks they need to thrive.

Deputy Festival Director Ujenyu Joy Sani said this year’s edition is 5^th edition of the festival and is one of the programs of the Abuja Literary Society (ALS).

“The Abuja Literary Society is the oldest gathering of creatives in Abuja. It is 24 years old now. We have members from all stratas of life. Our work has been to sort of refine people’s creative skills. People bring their thesis to our meetings where we critique their work, offer them helpful suggestions on how to make their work better. We encourage people to build their stage presence.

Speaking about the competition, she said; “For the festival, it started off with us wanting to showcase Nigeria, Abuja especially to world; What is Abuja in terms of creativity, and how we can contribute to the global stage.

“This year’s festival is to provide artists and creatives with skills, provide them with platforms and trainings to refine their craft for them to be able to make a living out of it. Today’s school debate and poetry competition is a post-festival activity, we have had all the festivals before now. We had panels, stage play, grand poetry slams and workshops.

“So we gathered secondary schools from around Abuja to come together to help them on the path of writing, public speaking and doing things that will put them on stage, so this is an avenue for them to groom those skills and be trained.

“At the end of today, we will have six winners; three for debate and three for poetry. For the debate, the winner will go home with N150,000, second winner with N100,000 and third place N50,000. For the poetry, the winner goes home with N100,000, second place N50,000 and third place N30,000.”

The project coordinator, Nene Okonya, said the programme is aimed at grooming young Nigerians into the creative world for the past 25 years.

Speaking on the criteria for selecting schools, she said; “We sent out letters to both public and private schools for participation and gave them a debate topic. We looked at reaching out to teenagers between 12-19 years.”

The event is sponsored by The CANS, Abuja Literary Society community, Aloynet Advisory and other organisations.