Nigeria Has More Top Scrabble Players Than Any Other Nation Including The UK

Scrabble competitors in Nigeria have worked out a way to dominate other countries at tournaments - by playing short words.

They have scrapped the traditional strategy of playing seven or eight letters for maximum points and it’s paying off.

The country has more top-200 Scrabble players than any other nation including the UK - and last year Nigeria’s Wellington Jighere defeated Britain’s Lewis Mackay.

According to Mr Jighere, “In other countries they see it as a game.

“Nigeria is one of the countries where Scrabble is seen as a sport.”

Mr Wellington Jighere

Thanks to the way the game is designed, players can reap points from bonus squares by playing short words as they are only four or five letters apart.

Nigerian players are drilled on long lists of five-letter words in the run-up to Scrabble tournaments and play 48 hour marathons of the game to prepare.

Britain's Lewis Mackay

But come the tournament, instead of staying out late socializing with opponents they go to bed early then pray in the morning.

Last November, Mr Jighere won by playing the five-letter ‘felty’ scoring 36 points after using ‘yow’ (34), ‘aah’ (17) and ‘quiz’ (93).

Meanwhile his British opponent was going for much longer words like ‘avouched’.

Mr Jighere, who has been playing Scrabble since he was 14 years old, added: “We had this inferiority complex.

“These guys are the owners of the language, they know so many words, we better be careful.”

Source: www.mirror.co.uk