African Youth Scrabble Championships: Nigeria’s youngsters begin campaign on winning notes

August 15, 2025 by Our Reporter

Team Nigeria  started their campaign  at the Pan African Youth Scrabble Championships  in Kenya on a good note  with 138 players competing for honours in two categories.

Abdulqudus Aliu is leading the cast of 54 players in the U-19 category with five wins in as many games and a healthy cumulative point of plus 915. Another Nigerian, Prestige Archibong is one win away from   Aliu but has a massive cumulative point of 1244 points from four wins.

Home boy, Caxton Mwai, has 521 cumulative points from five  victories to seat behind Abdulqudus Aliu.

Joy Nwabuzor, the only Nigerian girl in the U-19 category, is giving the others  a run for their money  with four  wins and plus 546 points. Team captain Sufyan Olojoku is not far off the leader board with three  wins.

In the U-15 event, Hassam,  from the Olojoku scrabble dynasty, as well as Sophia Ekeruche and Eliana Igbe, are just too strong for the 84-man field in the competition as they won their first three  rounds of games with an impressive cumulative of  687 points for  Olojoku and Ekeruche while  Igbe 43 was  points less.

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Meanwhile, two more players Aneef Kelani and Abidah Fatai have been added to the Team Nigeria at the Championships. Both players are giving a good account of themselves in the U-15 category.

Fatai Abidah was born in Lagos while Aneef Kelani was born in New York and they both schools at Heritage Global Academy, a boarding school in Ikorodu, Lagos.

Their voyage into the mind sport has been aided by their very supportive family and one of Africa and Nigeria’s finest Tournament Directors, Khaleel Adedeji, who has been guiding them in the game of scrabble.

Meanwhile, the President of the Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF), Engineer Olobatoke Aka, has thanked the Kwara State government for supporting three members of Team Nigeria as well as an accompanying official to the championship.

 “We are elated that the Kwara State government is always willing to support scrabble and we are equally happy that the chairman of Lagos State Scrabble and Monopoly Association, Engineer Dipo Akanbi is also backing us.”