Recently updated on February 12th, 2023 at 12:47 pm
26-year-old Enoch Nwali has emerged winner of the 2022 Africa Scrabble Championship held in Lusaka, Zambia.
The Health education undergraduate student of University of Lagos (UNILAG) is crowned the 14th Africa Scrabble Champion, after defeating Wellington Jighere.
He won 24 games and drew 1.
He won several gold medals at the last National Sports Festival and at NUGA games and is now among the world’s top 10 going by WESPA rating.
He is one top seeded to represent the country at the forth coming World Scrabble Championship in Las Vegas, USA next year.
Enoch 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.
However, 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, Enoch Nwali would win 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 push 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.
In May, both players had faced each other back in Nigeria at the “Sophomore” Emmanuel Egbele Annual Scrabble Tournament (EEAST) where the “Drummer Boy” triumph over the ” World Champ” at the final stage to win the tournament.
On the overall ranking, Jighere finished second with 22 wins and 10 losses while another Nigerian Prince Omosefe came third with same score but with lesser cumulative points.
Oyende Allan of Kenya placed third while Eta Karo finished fifth.
His win in the Southern African country has now extended Nigeria’s dominance on the African scene to 13 wins from the 14 editions held so far since 1994.
10 countries featured at this edition while the 15th edition will be hosted by Sierra Leone in 2024.
Past Winners of Africa Scrabble Championship
Year winner host
- 1994 Iffy Onyeonwu Kenya
- 1996 Femi Awowade Nigeria
- 1998 Wale Fashina South Africa
- 2000 Moshood Sanni Ghana
- 2002 Trevor Hovelmeier Kenya
- 2004 Dennis Ikekeregor Tanzania
- 2006 Dennis Ikekeregor Nigeria
- 2008 Jighere Wellington Kenya
- 2010 Jighere Wellington Ghana
- 2012 Rex Ogbakpa Zambia
- 2014 Etim Nsikak South Africa
- 2016 Ayorinde Saidu Ghana
- 2018 Moses Peter Kenya
- 2022 Enoch Nwali Zambia
It was double celebration for Nigeria as Adekoyejo Adegbesan got elected as the new president of Pan African Scrabble Association (PANASA) by the continental African Scrabble governing body in Lusaka Zambia on October 23, 2022 for the next two years.
The scrabble player and scrabble club owner defeated the incunbent president Mohammed camara of Sierra Leone with 9 votes to 1 to become the third Nigerian to occupy the no one position.
Two Nigerian former Scrabble presidents Engineer Toke Aka and Alhaji Suleman Gora, had previously held sway in the continent with the former heading PANASA for 12 years from 2002 to 2014 and the latter for 4 years between 2014 and 2018.
