JIGHERE WELLINGTON, WORLD'S NO. 3, RETAINS AFRICAN SCRABBLE CROWN

African King, Jeghere Wellington

Jighere Wellington, the continent’s champion, who started his title defence in Accra, Ghana last Wednesday, yesterday (Sunday) evening retained his crown to become the second man in the history of the game to win the title back to back. Jighere has won the Africa Championship with 21 wins and 1800 cumulative.

The Africa Championship has been held eight times with Nigeria winning seven of them, the last one being two years ago in Nairobi where, Jighere Wellington emerged champion. Previous African champions from Nigeria include Iffy Onyewonwu, Femi Awowade, Jimoh Saheed, Moshood Sanni and only Dennis Ikekeregor has won it twice.

President of the Nigeria Scrabble Federation NSF, Engr. Toke Aka, who spoke from Accra on phone said, "We all worked very hard to retain our crown in Ghana. I had no fear that any African team can upstage Team Nigeria especially with the fire in the heart of these players during the daily match-ups organised in the closed camping before we left for Accra"

As at the time of retaining the African diadem, he was rated no three in the world and the highest rated African in the world scene.

The other Africans rated in the top-10 in the world are Kenya’s Patrick Litunya rated sixth, Nigeria’s   Emmanuel Umujose rated ninth and Nigerian born but South African citizen,  Lanre Oyekunle who is rated 10^th.