By Jacob Ajom

The steady growth of the Ecobank Nationsl Schools Team Chess Championship has been attributed to its competitiveness and the all-inclusive nature of the tournament, the organisers have said. This year’s event will begin on May 7th.

Speaking ahead of this year’s event in a press conference held at the Ecobank Pan-African Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, Kunle Adewoyi, the bank’s head of Educational and Social Services said “since its inception, the championship has grown in scale and impact and this can be measured in terms of participation has grown from 1210 students in 2024 to 1830 students from 366 schools from across the six geo-political zones in 2025.” It is expected that the number of participating will be bigger this year as more entries for the 2026 edition were still being received before the press conference.

Apart from schools participation, the championship has also added one participatant in terms of corporate sponsorship as SCHOOLMATE, a company which is into the production of educational material has joined forces with the Nigerian Chess Federation to contribute to the success of the championship.

Ambesh Kumar, head of Marketing at SCHOOLMATE said the company would encourage the development of children who are the future of the nation. He justified their involvement in the annual Chess tournament which kicks off next week at the Ecobank Pan African Centre in Lagos.

“Although Chess is not a glamorous sport like football, basketball or athletics; but it helps one to plan, strategise on how to execute one’s plan, it teaches discipline and above all enhances optimum use of resources.” He also said they will be happy to contribute to getting most of the emerging stars become FIDE ranked players. :We want to see Nigerians become Grand Masters some day,” he alluded.

Reacting to the question of provision of logistics to participating schools, Kumar said, “We have to start from somewhere. Maybe in one or two years down the line, with Ecobank as the major sponsors and other potential co-sponsors like us, they will be helping in some aspects of the tournament like accommodation and other logistics.”