Tunde Onakoya, the Nigerian chess master, has launched the Lagos International Chess Festival to promote chess, art and Lagos culture to a global audience.
The festival’s first edition will hold in October 2027. Onakoya announced the event on Saturday at the Mikano Motors showroom in Lagos during a celebration of his birthday.
“This is the starting point, the visual reality of the first edition,” he said.
“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.”
What to expect at the festival
The festival will feature several activities that combine chess with art and entertainment.
Organisers plan to hold a chess and art exhibition, a large-scale children’s tournament, grandmaster matches and a celebrity chess competition.
Other activities include a chess and fashion event, a celebration of Lagos and a chess game on a boat.
Onakoya said he hopes to share the game’s impact with more people.
“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,” he said.
The festival’s logo also reflects its focus on Lagos culture. It combines the Eyo masquerade, a symbol of the city, with the chess rook. Its colours reflect Lagos’s vibrancy.
Representatives of Mikano, Landmark Africa Group, Lufthansa, Hennessy, The Plug Global Agency and Chess in Slums Africa attended the unveiling.
Onakoya’s work with children
Onakoya founded Chess in Slums Africa, a non-profit organisation that uses chess to provide educational opportunities for children from disadvantaged communities.
He gained global recognition in April 2024 after setting a Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon.
Onakoya and Puerto Rican chess master Shawn Martinez played for more than 61 hours in New York’s Times Square. Their effort surpassed the previous record of 61 hours, three minutes and 34 seconds.
Norwegian players Hallvard Haug Flatebø and Sjur Ferkingstad had set that record in June 2024.
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