Former scrabble world champion Wellington Jighere says National champion Olatunde Oduwole deserves his victory after both players squared on Sunday in Benin City.
Oduwole beat Jighere 2-1 to cause an upset as he emerged Nigeria’s scrabble king after winning the Champion of Champions championship beating the world No.4 Jighere in a hard-fought final match.
Oduwole claimed the star prize of N500,000 and a giant trophy at the event, which was held at the multi-purpose hall of Prestige Hotel.
Speaking after his victory, Oduwole admitted that it was a tough final game against Jighere but added that he was lucky.
“It was a crunchy final but I had better tiles to decide the game. I was very lucky to have won,” Oduwole told sporting media.
“It’s not easy playing against a world champion. We’ve met on different occasions and it’s anybody who wins that decides the tournament. I could have lost today (Sunday) but I won because I was destined to win and not because I did anything extraordinary.”
However, Jighere disagreed with the champions but said his victory was a deserved one.
“It was a worthy final,” he said
“I think that was him (Oduwole) being humble because he played very well and I don’t think it was about luck because he played really well and he deserved to win. So, I disagree with him that it was about luck.”
On the competition itself, the two-time African Scrabble Championship winner said, “This championship is different from the others because in every other championship we have 21 games to play and naturally the winner emerges at the end of the 21 games but this champion of champions the format was a bit different.”
Discover more from LN247
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
