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It was a true test of psychological endurance and mental strength in the second season of Scrabble In The Jungle -The Gen Z Edition as Musa Lateef, a University of Lagos student won the title after 32 rounds.
The 200-level Bio-medical Engineering student deployed grit and word skills and at times, unusual strategy to keep his score above other highly-worded rivals as he was crowned the “King of the Jungle” with 20 wins with a cumulative of 654 points.
The “Word -bank” exhumed confidence even when he was pushed to the final round by his closest opponent and “Day One Champ” Wasiu Hassan whose defeat in the last round saw him drop to the third on the log with 19 wins and a cumulative of 862 points.
“It was a tough one! Having won Day 2 as ‘The Champ’, I was shocked when I started the third day with a defeat to Kareem Jamiu. I was like, is this how the day will be?” queried the 3rd best youth player in Africa who doesn’t take a meal during a tournament.
“But, as my luck would have it, In my second game, I played a non-word which my opponent failed to challenge so, I used it to earn my first win. It was a very tough tournament but in the end, it was at the very last game I secured my victory.”
Current African Youth champion David Ojih would profit from Hassan’s fall as he climbed to second position with 20 wins after he defeated fourth-placed Kareem Jamiu in the last round.
Lateef, Ojih, Hassan and Jamiu received N300,000, N220,000, N150,000 and N80,000 respectively while fifth-placed Emmanuel Enyi earned N50,000 for his efforts.
Muyiwa Mosope won the prize for the Best Behaved Housemate after the 3-day tournament.
Other participants who featured at the boot camp were; Akeem Ogundokun, Priscilla Akhabue, Oghenekaro Onakpogbe and Ola Joy.
President of Scrabble Las Vegas Musa Olasupo in his closing remarks thanked sponsors; Thrive Agric, PANASA, FPC Couture, EEAST, JAMSC, Mindgames Incorporated, Chiamaka Apparel and a host of others who supported the success of the SITJ including every subscriber who bought into the project.
“We can’t but thank all our sponsors and subscribers for their strong support and who helped us succeed in this second season. The journey is a bit stiff but we are happy that we are making progress,” he stated.
“Our vision is to replicate the big brand like Big Brother Nigeria where we can bring in the best of scrabble players in Nigeria under one enclosure and get viewers’ participation where players will be up for eviction and maybe build a support base for scrabble.
“For us in Scrabble Las Vegas, that’s our vision which we are committed to,” he concluded.
