Delta State born wordsmith and current West African Scrabble Champion, Eta Paul Oghenekaro, has emerged the champion of the Asaph Zadok National Championship concluded in Abuja on Wednesday.
The player who was crowned champion in 2005 also finished second at seven different editions before brushing aside a very powerful field that included four past national holders of the treasured NSF Green Jacket and thirty other players in the Masters category.
Before the last of the 28 rounds of games, Oghenekaro was tied with current African Champion Enoch Tochukwu Nwali on 19 wins.
Any result other than a win would have handed the Green Jacket to Nwali because he had a massive cumulative points but Oghenekaro had to dig deep to outsmart the University of Lagos 300 level Health Education student by 401-390 to gather 20 wins and a plus 1048 cumulative points.
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Nwali finished with 19 wins and 1781 cumulative points.
This is the second time in ten months that Nwali is playing second fiddle to Oghenekaro at a major competition.
Another member of Team Lagos, John Aiyedun who started the final day as the pacesetter came third with 19 wins and plus 985 cumulative.
Umukoro Oghomaria with 18 wins and plus 637 cumulative finished fourth ahead of captain of Team Nigeria, Oshevire Avwenagha who also secured 18 victories but had a lower cumulative points of plus 102.
As a result of his success at the Asaph Zadok National Championship, Oghenekaro picked up 71 NSF rating points to move to the second position in the national ranking with 1,728 points.
Oghenekaro will be decorated with the NSF National Champion Green Jacket on Sunday during the Awards and Gala Night at the Banquet Hall of Hotel de Bentley in Utako-district, Abuja.
