Following the unprecedented round of debate between the candidates, World African Students Association (WASA) elected its new president on Friday evening.

“We have a lot of new students in the club so we thought of holding the presidential debates to give them a chance to know their leaders,” said Valentine Chukwuma, the outgoing president of WASA.

The debate was an opportunity for students to know if the candidate is a capable person or just a good friend, Chukwuma added. “There was a lot of contrast between the candidates making it easy to pick between the candidates.”

According to Priscilla Zinyemba, a member of the election committee, there are only a few senior members in WASA, and it is critical for new members to understand how various activities need to be carried out — the presidential debate served that purpose.

“We Africans are socially different, but we want to be acceptable in both cultures and we wanted to ensure that by giving WASA a different face,” Zinyemba said.

Prior to the presidential elections, nominees for the executive committee were interviewed and screened; everybody had a chance to talk to the club members.

Chike Abana, who looks to make WASA more popular at Lee University, won over Oladayo Kola-Olaleye in the competitive election.

“I would like to see WASA perform like any other student club on campus,” said the new president-elect, who wants to encourage non-African student participation in the club.

Gidean Olabuyi of Nigeria said that there are better days ahead for WASA.

“The leadership will go through some hard times but with our support it is eventually going to succeed,” Olabuyi said.

The new developments in WASA can be considered a rather rejuvenating transition at a time when diversity clubs at Lee have been reported to be going through a lackluster patch.