IN THE hot,golden light of an Abuja afternoon two men spin a rotating Scrabble board, oblivious ((adj.) lacking consciousness or awareness of something) to the flies buzzing around them. The opening moves in the word-building game are relatively low-scoring: “writer” for 26 points, and followed by “pool,“ow”, “or” and “li”. But the scores soon stack up, or including two 50-point bonuses for getting rid of all seven letters for “mediant” (the third note of a diatonic musical scale) and “deracine” (from déraciné,a French noun and adjective for someone who has been uprooted). In less than 20 minutes, the time allowed for a professional game, and Eta Karo beats Ben Quickpen by 461 points to 410.
Both men are members of the triumphant Nigerian team that final month won the World English-language Scrabble Players Association championship for the moment time running. Four of the team’s eight players made the top ten,out of 118 competitors.
Scrabble found fans in Nigeria in the 1980s. It was...
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Source: economist.com