By Victor Kanayo
Barely 24 hours after Nigeria took over the political affairs of scrabble in Africa, the country has again re-asserted it’s dominance at sporting level again as Enoch Nwali won the 14th edition of the African Scrabble Championship (ASC) which held in Lusaka, Zambia.
Earlier, another Nigerian Adekoyejo Adegbesan was elected as the President of the Pan Africa Scrabble Association (PANASA) after he defeated the incumbent Muhamed Kamara.
Nwali who is winning the title for the first time, defeated his closest rival and compatriot Wellington Jighere in a tightly contested round 31.
Wellington, a dogged master of the game trailed the young gun from day two closely expecting some slip-up from the frontrunner.
But round 31 became a threshold for both players as Jighere who won the African title back-to-back in 2008 and 2010 knew a defeat would be fatal to his ambition to make it three and the first to do so.
He would garner some pretty points in the early stage of the game as his younger compatriot tried to catch-up.
A quickfire of premiums in three succession with the word ‘Tousier’, ‘Yearding’ and ‘Eanlings’ propelled Nwali above Jighere as both players hunt for more points in the intriguing encounter.
At the end, Nwali won the tie by a point as the final score stood at 514-513 after Jighere did some reconciliation for a possible scoring error which could drag the game further.
After the result was confirned, the score would pushed Nwali’s overall result to 25½ wins and 6½ losses with a monstrous 2,023 cumulative points and stamped his new status as the 11th Nigerian to have his name etched in history as a winner at the championship.
