Fasilat Oluwuyi
A student of Mass Communication, Blessing Abioje has emerged winner of the 8th edition of Moruf Popoola Public Speaking Competition.
The competition which was organised by the Junior Chamber International Mapoly Chapter at Babalakin Hall on Wednesday had a total of nine contestants speaking on the topic "Working while Schooling,a distraction or an addition".
Blessing emerged winner after a keenly contested debate with five other contestants from other department who made it to the second round of of the Competition.
Blessing who was also the first runner up winner at the recent public speaking competition organised by the Association of Mass Communication student while speaking with PCM said the competition has been a great challenge for him.
He expressed gratitude to God and attributed the feat to hard-work and proper preparation.
"I once partake in one which is the second edition of Amacos public speaking some months back,I was fortunate to come up with the first runner up.So this has been a great challege for me and a motive that if I come across another in life I’ll try my possible best.
"All I can just say about this is that I want to give all glory to God and all thanks to my department that has so much believe in me that I can do it .
"I spoke about a topic I spoke that what will be will always be.Man can not go beyond destiny.God has destined that am going to be the first position but if I hadn’t come and If I hadn’t prepare enough I wouldn’t have emerge the first position".
He also urged aspiring public speakers to study and learn about what public speaking entails.
"The grace that everyone are carrying are different and for those that are trying to emerge at every public speaking stage,you need to go back and study, learn about what public speaking entails.Now it is at my first competition that I get to know that it is not about rushing, fasting,it is all about calmess and artriculation of points that’s what have been able to put in place today.
"So am telling others that whenever you are in a public speaking competition you just need to calm down, articulate your points and make the judges and the audience know you have something to deliver for them.I do not look up to the judges but I look up to the audience because they are the one am passing my message to that’s the key to achieving that success and also believing."
Dare Ogunkoya and Wunmi Aliyu emerged first and second runner up of the competition respectively.
The speaker and organizer of the competition,Moruf Popoola said the competition was organised to enhance the public speaking ablity of students as well as help them communicate better.
He also stated that the competition was a way for him to give back to the community.
"Am actually a public speaker and a marketing guy and I found that one of those things that is lacking in our environment is actually the ability of our student to be able to communicate which takes them just beyond the four walls of the academic but rather it makes them more vibrant in what they do
"Also I felt that this is a way of me giving back to the little community that I earn from and I knew that if I do this,I would give back to the community and also put students in their spot check to make sure that they are on top of what they should know because I found out that alot of times when you ask students when it comes to an interview point they can even communicate they don’t even know what to say or how to say it if they know it so with this is also a way of helping the student to communicate better.
He said the competition was
targeted at all tertiary institutions in Ogun State but only limited to Moshood Abiola Polytechnic due to lack of support.
"The idea was to do it in all the institutions in Ogun State but because we don’t have support am only doing it on my own we are limiting it to Mapoly for now but I hope in the future maybe by the time we get to the tenth edition we’ll ask other schools to also partake in"he said
