As  call for a national dialogue has continued to heat the polity, students from various schools, who gathered last Thursday, at the Humanities Week of Loral International Day Secondary School, Festac, Lagos, also shared their mixed feelings on the national confab, in a mind-pulsating debate competition.

While students of Loral International Day Secondary School coloured the previous day with a novelty football match, carnival, and Pantomime presentation, Tender Touch College, Festac, also had Pantomime presentations, as other invited schools like Naval Officers’ Wives Association Secondary School (NOWA), Ojo, Lagos and Kabe College, Festac  locked horns in a debate contest entitled: “The Call to a National Conference: An Unnecessary Distraction.”

Representing NOWA was Master Albright Ehimze, who spoke in proposition for the confab, while Miss A    debusola Adeyemi of Kabe College, antagonized the a call for the confab.

Being the first speaker to take the stage, Ehimze argued that the national conference must be seen as an ample opportunity for the various ethnic nationalities to come together to dialogue and discuss, rather than to be seen as a distraction.

His words: “A national conference or dialogue is a meeting of all the stakeholders comprising of the various ethnic groups, interest groups, civil societies among other. The call is one that will afford Nigerians the ample opportunity to come together, in discussing issues bordering the citizens of this country. Topmost is the issue of power rotation among the six geo-political zones, resource control and allocation, issue of Federal concern and behaviour, quota system, the police and judiciary reforms.

In my honest opinion, the proposed national dialogue by President Goodluck Jonathan is welcoming and it’s a calculated attempt to realize a valuable change, positive vision and wholesome rebirth of this great nation. I’m quite optimistic that the proposed national dialogue if embarked upon, will help improve national peace, unity and progress.”

Contrarily, Adeyemi argued that the call for a national dialogue at this point when the 2015 General elections is just around the corner is nothing but a distraction. “The national dialogue is a distraction away from the pressing national issues like economy, education, health, agriculture, power among others. Looking at our economy, it has been depressed for a long time and all efforts to revamp it has proved abortive.

Does government need a national dialogue to give the Nigerian masses quality education, good roads, potable pipe borne water, access to quality healthcare, stable power supply, job opportunities for the teeming Nigerian graduates and youths, does it need a national dialogue to call-off ASUU strike? All government needs is to sit down and put things right, instead of calling for a national dialogue that will end up in jamboree like others.”

Benjamin Uzoukwu, Principal of Loral International Day Secondary School, stressed that the importance of the humanities week “hinges on the fact that learning doesn’t end in the classroom. You will agree with me that the students need to be given the opportunity to exhibit their innate abilities, vis- a-vis putting into practice what they have been thought in the classroom.”