An international student at the Coventry University, Moboluwarin Ayeye, has explained why he called for the ban on amala in his class presentation which generated social media backlash over the weekend.

In a reaction which he sent exclusively to The PUNCH, Ayeye, who simply goes by Bolu on his Twitter handle, said, “I love being a Yoruba and Nigerian man, and proud of it (most of the time).”

He added that the presentation was part of a class project to help students improve their presentation skills, hence, the content of the presentation didn’t really matter.

“The class’ name is Presentation Skills for Successful Graduates and it’s a class on improving and working on media and presentation skills. So, the goal isn’t necessarily about the content, more so about demonstrating excellent presentation and media skills.

“So, while I had spent weeks practising and perfecting my presentation and media skills, the subject matter during the class mattered little. It just had to a have lot of information and more importantly, I had to showcase strong presentation and speaking skills, a bit of a challenge for me, as I had always struggled talking to groups of people.

“But what people didn’t know was that it wasn’t a serious slide in my presentation in the first place. It was one of two ice breakers I had prepared to make my presentation more exciting and engaging for my class.

“The first to my fellow Africans in the room to catch their attention and the second one, ‘Why Superman is the greatest hero of all times,’ to catch everyone in general’s attention. What is funny in the end, I realised while practising I wouldn’t even have the time to use these two joke icebreaker slides and skipped over them during my slides, the real presentation was actually on Brexit.”

He revealed that he enjoys annoying his friends and followers on social media. While, he wasn’t bothered about the backlash that came with the Amala brouhaha, Bolu stated that his parents were also dragged into the matter and with that, he wasn’t okay.