The Green Locusts' Performance in the WESPAC 2025 by Chinedu

2025 World Scrabble Championship, Accra Ghana: Summary of the Nigerian Green Locusts' Performance over Days 1 to 5 (PART B: Explanation of the Performance)

...Timi Woko🇳🇬 in table 1 at game 11. The first game Timi dropped at the WESPAC in Ghana was with Nigel Richards.

(By Chinedu 'Sidespin' Thorpe Nosike Okwelogu, National Scrabble Champion, former Nigerian Scrabble #1, and Retired Deputy Director (Planning, Research, and Strategy), National Orientation Agency)

1.

First of all, it is appropriate to recognise and applaud Barrister Timi Woko of Bayelsa State for his very praiseworthy feat of winning the First 10 Rounds of the World Scrabble Championship!

He showed very uncommon resilience reminiscent of the potentials shown by yet another lawyer, Barrister Biodun Olaleru SAN in 1997. Timi's feat is being looked into by way of determining whether it is a World Scrabble Record performance.

To put Timi Woko's exploits in proper perspective, it will be helpful to look for his name on the List of Nigerian Scrabble Champions.

Not finding his name there will give us an idea of the scale of his accomplishment.

Nigerian Scrabble Champions

The order of listing the champions is the order of chronological precedence in their becoming Champions. An asterisk (*) follows the name of a departed champion.

1. Femi Awowade (1986)

2. Chijioke Uzo (1987)

3. Dokun Esan (1988)

4. Paulinus Ekunke (1988)

5. Azubuike Ogbogu (1989)

6. Ifeanyi Onyeonwu (1990)

7. Samson Okosagah (1990)

8. Debo Ajose (1991)

9. Ayo Faseyiro (1993)*

10. Chinedu Okwelogu (1994)

11. Segun Durojaye (1994)

12. Moshood Sanni (1995)

13. Lanre Oyekunle (1998)

14. Wale Fashina (1998)

15. Paul Sodje (1999) *

16. Tunde Adigun (2000)

17. Dennis Ikekeregor (2002)

18. Oshevire Avwenagha (2003)

19. Ojiru Onota (2003)

20. Venayori Kinga (2005) *

21. Anthony Ikolo (2005) 

22. Sunday Oshodi (2005)

23. Lukeman Owolabi (2005)

24. Oteheri Onota (2005)

25. Eta Karo (2005)

26. Ayorinde Saidu (2006)

27. Ibukun Faloye (2006)

28. Moses Peter (2007)

29. Emmanuel Umujose (2008)

30. Wellington Jighere (2008)

31. Rasheed Balogun (2009)

32. Cyril Umebiye (2009)

33. Nsikak Etim (2011)

34. Rex Ogbakpa (2012)

35. Wale Ogedengbe (2015)

36. Tunde Oduwole (2016)

37. Samuel Adebola (2016)

38. Dipo Akanbi (2017)

39. George Ezinore (2018)

40. John Aiyedun (2019)

41. Stanley Ubiedi (2019)

42. Jack Mpakaboari (2020)

43. Prince Omosefe (2021)

44. Enoch Nwali (2022)

45. Victor Godwin (2023)

46. Timi Doko (2023)

47. Koyejo Adegbesan (2025)

48. Abdulmumin Jimoh (2025)

2.

This brings us to the very silent but salient factor of TRAINING.

What is it that grilled generations of Nigerian Scrabble Masters into the almost congenital fighting machines the country has produced, nurtured, cultured, and exported?

It is the Volitional and Contributory Multiple Daily Retreat Culture introduced at the Ikeja Cantonment Married Officers Quarters residence of Brigadier General Gold Eburu that got exported to Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Warri, Abuja, Ilorin and all the major Scrabble-playing centres in Nigeria of the 1990s.

That training system consisted in players conducting three mini tournaments a day of 4 rounds a tournament or four mini tournaments a day of three rounds a tournament in their locality, generating their own prize money through the registration fees they paid.

This multiple retreat culture did not make it obligatory for players to be present for an entire day, encouraged players to be self-reliant through steeling their nerves to contribute their own hard-earned money to a prize pool they were not certain to share from, ensured that there were several opportunities in a day for the player to aspire to make money from (players who had jobs could dash out of the office, take part in one retreat of three games, make some cash, and dash back to the office with their office colleagues being none the wiser), and exposed the players to the various and varied attacking, defensive, and all-round playing styles there were.

3.

It is this generational production line of Champions that has made there to be no vacuum created by the mass exodus of National Scrabble Champions to other countries in search of greener pasture.

It is in light of this that National Scrabble Coach Anthony Ikolo has written his name in gold in the annals of Nigerian Scrabble history by being the administrator and trainer who welded the present crop of young national champions into the devastating fighting machines they have become.

Young champs like Enoch Nwali, John Aiyedun, Timi Doko, and Abdulmumin Jimoh owe their international Scrabble blooding to Coach Anthony Ikolo.

4.

Which brings us to the most important contributor to Nigeria's Scrabble greatness - THE TOTAL DETRIBALISATION OF THE NIGERIAN SCRABBLE ATMOSPHERE, MESOSPHERE, LITHOSPHERE, AND STRATOSPHERE.

Wherever a Scrabble player is domiciled in Nigeria is automatically their home, and the Scrabble playership of that locale becomes their immediate family. Very often, this family has provided jobs for the jobless, homes for the homeless, and provided various other life-support facilities not seen in other sporting associations.

Even where players have been punished or been otherwise disciplined, deservedly or undeservedly, there has not been any ethnic tincture to it.

5.

This explanation of Nigeria's Scrabble feat at the 2025 World Scrabble Championship in Ghana will not be complete without a copious mention of the Technical Depth of Nigerian Scrabble, from its days as the Scrabble Association of Nigeria (1989-2002) to its current transmutation as the Nigeria Scrabble Federation (2002-Date).

Not only has the country consistently churned out National Technical Directors from Femi Awowade to Larry Ojoko to Faruq Babainna to John Curtis that have enabled their players keep pace with international best practices in Scrabble, but Nigeria now has a new National Technical Director in Khaleel (Dynamite) Adedeji who began to set the technical pace years before his assumption of this new role.

At the just concluded World Scrabble Championship, Khaleel introduced his pet Electronic Results Submission Mechanism which was a pleasant novelty to the World Scrabble community but which was a stroll in the park for the Nigerian players by virtue of their having long since been acquainted with it.

6.

Also worthy of mention as a contributor to Nigeria's deadly National Scrabble ethos has been the inclination and disposition of her top Scrabble players to go into Scrabble Tournament Organisation in recent years. This SCRABBLE ADVENTURISM was pioneered by Lukeman Owolabi and continued by Ebikeme Adowei, Emmanuel Egbele, Khaleel Adedeji, and Koyejo Adegbesan.

The end-product of this is that the current President of the Pan African Scrabble Association (PANASA) is Koyejo Adegbesan of Nigeria and the current Chairman of the World English-Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) is Lukeman Owolabi of Nigeria.

There can be no more emphatic testimony of a country's Scrabble greatness and dominance than that.

7.

Right from when Scrabble was reborn as the 26th National Sport during the tenure of Jim Nwobodo as Sports Minister, Nigerian Scrabble had a Siamese Twin - the press!

From Maxwell Kumoye to Patrick Omorodion to the late Fashiku, Nigerian Scrabble has enjoyed a devoted mainstream media, digital media, and social media coverage unparalleled in the propagation of financially disadvantaged sports.

This write-up could go on and on, but then it would cease to be a summary.

Suffice it to say that Nigeria has its plate full defending her African Scrabble Championship title in Sierra Leone in 2026, and retaining her World Best Country title at the World Scrabble Championship in the UK in 2027.