…Five Nigerians in the top ten as Wellington Jighere dictates the pace
…Nigeria’s superb outing excites NSF President, Olobatoke Aka
By Maxwell Kumoye
Members of Team Nigeria are dominating a warm-up event, the North America Scrabble Championship holding in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA after four days of grueling competition.
Former World Champion and two time African King, Wellington Jighere is leading the pack with 25 wins from 29 games with a cumulative points of plus 1181 ahead tournament number two seed David Eldar and number four seed Alec Sjoholm.
Eldar is on 22 wins and a huge cumulative points of plus 1854 while Sjoholm has 19 wins from 29 round of games.
Two other members of Team Nigeria, Prince Osahon Omosefe and Champion of Champions, Olatunde Oduwole completes the top five with 17 wins each.
From the 6th to the 11th spot, cumulative points is what separates them as all have 16 wins each and in that bunch, is the tournament number one seed, Austin Shin at number 8 with a cumulative points of 725.
Opeyemi Oloro and Oghenekaro Paul Eta are other Team Nigeria players that are jamming hard and are in the mix at number 9 and 10 with 16 wins each.
Jack Mpakaboari, Dipo Akanbi, Oshivere Avwenegha, Bright Idahosa and John Curtis are also giving a good account of the country at the warm-up competition ahead of the World Championship which begins on Saturday.
This strong showing, the President of Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF) Engineer Olobatoke Aka says is a sign of good and glad tidings to come as the World Championship beckons.
Currently 14 Nigerians have secured their tickets for the World Championship and if the warm-up and qualifiers events goes well, more Nigerians will punch their tickets to the big one, the World Championship.
