Nigerian world scrabble champion unveils his secrets  

Nigerian born Jighere Wellington who won the 2015 world scrabble championship which had about 130 participants from many countries from Nigeria stated that adequate preparation is the sole key to success. The current scrabble world no. 1 payer disclosed that Africa is blessed with enormous talents scattered all over the continent, adding that the game of scrabble will soon become prominent in Nigeria. Excerpts from an interview Wellington granted recently

Being a world champion in Scrabble which is relatively popular in this part of the world, how do you feel? 

Sincerely, it feels good and sometimes it makes one realize the amount of work to be done in terms of making Scrabble become as popular as possible.

How long did you prepare for the 2015 championship?

The preparation was in multiple phases and I would say it is relative. In every sense of it, preparation has been for a couple of years, but the actual preparation for the one I won was more than a year.

There were over a hundred of participants at the tournament in Australia and you came first, helping Africa to more slots at the next championship, how does this really feel?

Well, one thing is to have prepared for something, another thing is for the preparation to be adequate. It was good that the adequate preparation eventually paid-off.

What’s your next plan; I mean what competition are you preparing for?

The emphasis for now is to de-emphasize championships. We are trying to work on a foundation. In fact, we are working towards the launching and when we are fully operational, it would try to reach all parts of the continent, starting from Nigeria. The level of awareness of the game is really low and there is a whole lot our young stars can benefit from playing scrabble.

We are working on selling scrabble as a tool for mental capacity building and find way to use it to contribute our own little quota to help the education of young Nigerians.

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Sports: What is the name of the foundation?

It is called the Wellington Foundation for Scrabble and Mind Development in Africa However, we are preparing for the African championship coming up later in the year. We also have the MSI coming up in France as well. We are preparing, however the emphasis is more than that of tournaments.

Who is your mentor?

Wow! I have a lot of mentors. I am one of the youngest scrabble playing masters in the nation and going by this, most of the people in the game are way older than me. So with that little insight, a lot of people have been impactful and virtually everyone I met in the game has been my mentor. When I emerged at the international scene, I also had a couple of mentors out there. So this list is unending and it would be unfair to mention just a few because I would not be able to mention all names.

Since you are the current world champion, how have you been able to manage the success especially when you meet people that recognise you in public?

Generally, you never get to be able to fully manage that but I am doing my best in trying to keep a low profile as possible.

So, what’s your advice for upcoming young ones that would opt for Scrabble?

My advice for them is to study really hard. Preparation for Scrabble really entails a lot of study and lots of practicing and all that. So they should keep on with the hard-work and definitely someday, they would get to their pinnacle.