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By Maxwell Kumoye
The Federal Ministry of Sports has washed its hands off Team Nigeria Scrabble that is heading to Kigali, Rwanda for the defense of the African Senior Championship it won two years ago in Lusaka, Zambia.
Award-winning news channel, First Zealmediacast Blog, reports that the ministry, under the stewardship of Senator John Enoh, told the Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF), that due to lack of funds they cannot support them to Rwanda for the championship.
The Sports ministry claimed that they had spent all the federal allocations on the 13th African Games and “the shambolic, disgraceful and woeful outing of Paris Olympic Games.”
To this end, the Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF) and its players have been told to go and source for funds for the 15 players and 5 officials who are expected to represent Nigeria at the competition which starts on the 23rd of this month.
Ironically, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu told the over 100 million youths of the country on Tuesday, that include these scrabble players that his administration cares deeply about them.
This development has forced members of Team Nigeria Scrabble, who are mostly young fresh graduates and unemployed youths, to beg friends, family members and school mates for money in order to make the trip to Kigali in three weeks time.
Ebonyi State-born and Lagos-based Enoch Nwali, of the University of Lagos, is the defending champion of the individual category, while Nigeria is the defending champion of the team event of the African Scrabble Championship.
It’s imperative to mention that Nigeria took the first three positions at the last African Scrabble Championship. They had five players in the top ten bracket in Lusaka, Zambia.
Nigeria has also won 13 of the previous 14 editions of the individual competition which started in 1994 and have won all the team titles.
It’s noteworthy to state that Nigeria is the best scrabble playing nation in the world, while Oluwatimilehin Doko a member of Team Nigeria is currently the highest African in the World English Scrabble Players Association (WESPA), rating at number 8 and four other Nigerians are in the top 20.
Last month, it took a last-minute intervention by Kwara State Government for Nigeria to participate in the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Sri Lanka.
