Nigeria’s young Scrabble players finished as the second-best country at the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Nairobi, Kenya, picking up multiple individual honours in a campaign the Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF) says was made possible by sustained backing from the Kwara State Government under Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
NSF spokesperson Maxwell Kumoye said Team Nigeria competed against 134 young players from around the world across 24 rounds over three days to claim the Second Best Country prize.
According to Kumoye, Sophia Ekeruche defended the Best Female Player title she won in Malaysia last year, while Yusuf Abdulsalam won the U-8 category and was also named Best Kid of the Tournament. Salvation Onazi finished second runner-up in the U-10 category, and Saviour Onazi placed third in the U-12 category. In the U-16 category, Olamide Hassan finished second runner-up and placed 10th overall.
Kumoye said Kwara, which has backed Nigerian Scrabble for about six years, funded the travel of four players and two officials to Nairobi, helping the country avoid missing another major international youth competition. The Bayelsa and Niger State Governments also supported the team, which was guided by coach Hassan Olojoku Abdulrafiu.
The result offered rare good news for Nigerian sport this week. The senior women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, lost twice to China – 70-67 on Friday and 69-65 on Sunday – in warm-up games in Haikou ahead of next month’s FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Berlin, while the Junior D’Tigers finished winless from three games, including a 77-68 defeat to hosts Côte d’Ivoire, at the FIBA U-18 AfroBasket in Abidjan.
The Super Falcons were also eliminated from the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations after a 1-0 quarter-final defeat to Cameroon in Casablanca on Sunday, while the Flying Eagles lost 4-1 to Burkina Faso in the WAFU Zone B U-20 Championship final, a result that ruled Nigeria out of both the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations and the FIFA U-20 World Cup.