I wasn’t expecting anything less – Africa youth scrabble champion, Prestige Archibong

Africa Youth Scrabble Championship U-19 champion, Prestige Archibong, says he wasn’t expecting anything below standard from himself and his teammates in Kenya, during the exhilarating event.

Prestige Archibong stated this during an interview with our correspondent.

He explained that rolling with the bigwigs in Scrabble, watching their every move, and the tactics behind it, helped him to dictate the pace at the biennial championship.

“We’re very happy we won, it’s a great win. We played and trained with the senior team, so I did not expect anything less from ‘Team Nigeria’ at the championship. The team was a great one and flawless,” he stressed.

Archibong’s goal of a flawless and seamless outing took a major hit in Kenya as officials failed to officiate fairly, pairing Archibong against his 4 teammates in a field of 54 other players, about ten times, twice, back-to-back, against his most feared youth scrabbler, tournament number three seed, Abdulqudus Aliu.

This, Archibong said made the event, challenging, for him and for his few teammates, but not strong enough to deter them, as they occupied the top four spots.

“The tournament was not an easy one, it was very tough though I played Nigeria’ in ten rounds, the whole tournament was against Nigerians. The toughest player for me was Abdulqudus Aliu, who beat me twice at the start of the tournament, back to back,” he emphasized.

Under the captaincy of Sufyan Olojoku, ‘Team Nigeria’ also won the U-15 category, as Sophie Ekeruche went unbeaten, winning 18 games with a massive cumulative points of plus 3871 while Hassan Olojoku came third with 13 victories and 1387 points, behind Kenya’s Kingsley Odhiambo who finished second with 14 wins and plus 583 points.

Eliana Igbe another Nigerian finished among the top 10. Her 12 wins from 18 games with cumulative points of plus 1406 leaves the promising wordsmith in the 6th spot overall behind Kenya’s Adrian Ngache.

The team crown in the U-15 event went to Kenya ahead of Nigeria and Ghana.

In the U-19 category, Nigeria’s Prestige Archibong who won the U-15 category two years ago in Lagos edged another member of Team Nigeria Abdulqudus Aliu to win the title with higher cumulative points of plus 2794 against 2568 points. Both players had the same number of wins ; 18, from 24 games.

Team captain Sufyan Olojoku was a win shy of Archibong and Aliu just like Joy Nwabuzor and Olive Alila but Sufyan Olojoku finished on the podium because of a better cumulative point.

Nigeria won the team title in the U-19 event ahead of Ghana and Kenya and also took the best country prize.

It’s noteworthy to state that besides Uganda that shares border with host nation, Kenya, Ghana had the largest contingent.

Archibong, further explained that he is hungry for more victory, and this burning desire, he will transfer to the upcoming World Youth Championship.

“The World Youth Championship in Malaysia is coming up, scrabblers around the world should watch out for us,” he concluded.