Emmanuel Umujose over the weekend, defeated over 80 players including the 2015 World English Language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) champion, Wellington Jighere, to win the Lekki Scrabble Club (LSC) Quarterly Retreat.
Against all odds, he pushed down the former world champion to second position while Oyinloye Abiola settled for the third position.
At the Retreat event which attracted a cash prize of almost N1m, Umujose dropped just a game to finish the 12 round competition with a score of 11 wins and a single defeat to emerge as the ‘top Jammer’.
Umujose said he was excited that he emerged the winner despite the high level of competition.
In other categories, Adebisi Adekansi became the Best Female Player, Hussain Yakubu picked the Best Student position while Dokun Esan emerged as the Best Veteran Player.
Meanwhile, the Adowei Ebibe-led executive of the Lekki Scrabble Club has promised to improve on the standard of organization even as stakeholders expressed satisfaction with the organisation of the competition.
Our Correspondent gathered that there are Scrabble clubs in twenty-eight of the thirty-six states and federal capital territory (FCT).
According to the world English-Player Scrabbles Association (WESPA), Nigeria currently has 40 clubs with a total membership of 398 registered/licensed players.
When the above figure is added to independent players (those who do not belong to clubs but pay a premium registration to take part in national Scrabble events), the adult player base in Nigeria is over 1,000.