Nigerian chess advocate and Guinness World Record holder Tunde Onakoya has unveiled the Lagos International Chess Festival, a brand new occasion scheduled for October 2027 that can mix aggressive chess with artwork, style and cultural experiences.
Onakoya introduced the pageant on Saturday, October 10, on the Mikano Motors showroom in Lagos, the place he celebrated his birthday and shared his imaginative and prescient of creating town a gathering level for chess gamers and fans from Africa and past.
The pageant goals to take chess past conventional tournaments by creating an expertise that displays Lagos’s id and brings the sport to a wider viewers.
“Chess has given me a way to find my place in the world, and I want to share that. It is a beautiful game, and it has the power to bring people together,” Onakoya stated.
The proposed programme features a chess and artwork exhibition, a large-scale match for kids, matches between grandmasters and a celeb chess match. Organisers additionally plan to introduce a chess and style occasion and a celebration celebrating Lagos.
One of the proposed actions is chess on a ship, an concept impressed by town’s waterways and its relationship with the encompassing lagoon.
Onakoya hopes the programme will entice individuals who may not ordinarily encounter chess via formal competitors, whereas creating alternatives for African gamers to attach with the worldwide chess neighborhood.
The pageant’s visible id additionally attracts inspiration from Lagos. Its brand combines parts of the Eyo masquerade, a recognisable image of town, with the form of a rook, one of many principal items in chess. The colors replicate Lagos’s vibrancy.
“This is the starting point, the visual reality of the first edition. I’m excited, a bit nervous and very curious, but I know that, like everything else we’ve done, we have to have faith in our ideas,” he stated.
Representatives of Mikano, Landmark Africa Group, Lufthansa, Hennessy, The Plug Global Agency and Chess in Slums Africa attended the announcement alongside different visitors. An intimate dinner at Gräs Lagos adopted the occasion.
With the inaugural version scheduled for October 2027, the following part will contain growing the proposed actions right into a pageant able to attracting gamers and audiences from throughout Africa and internationally.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
Follow us on:
