Tunde Onakoya, The Chess Champion Lola Shoneyin, 2025; Tanja, pp 59
As the enthusiastic audience reception to media like the Disney movie Queen of Katwe and the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit has shown, chess and non chess players alike are fascinated by narratives that feature underdogs navigating, and eventually triumphing over life’s adversities by way of their chess-playing abilities.
The biography of Tunde Onakoya, the Nigerian social entrepreneur and founder of the non-profit organisation Chess in Slums Africa, treads a similar path.
Under the credo “Unveiling the King and Queen in Every Pawn,” Onakoya’s work is geared towards using chess to educate and empower children, especially those from marginalised communities so it is fitting that his life story has been immortalised by renowned author, Lola Shoneyin in a book specifically written for this demographic.
In Tunde Onakoya, the Chess Champion, Shoneyin traces his life from his humble beginnings in Ketu, Lagos State to his joint 2025 Guinness World Record with American Chess Master Shawn Martinez for the longest chess marathon. She recounts how discovering chess during an economically vulnerable phase in his childhood imbued Onakoya with a sense of purpose, with the consistent practice and eventual mastery not only sharpening his intellect, but providing him with a source of income during his university years.
Little wonder then that when he is later presented with the opportunity to uplift at-risk children, he does so by teaching them how to play the 1.5 millenia-old strategy board game.
The grass-to-grace narrative is often romanticised, however in this story, Shoneyin does not shy away from showing the harsh realities of poverty and how limiting it can be.
For instance, while the experience helps him to build resilience, financial scarcity gets in the way of the young Onakoya’s access to quality healthcare culminating in a long-term health complication.
That said, Shoneyin also makes the argument for how diligence and values, not socio-economic status, determine one’s self-worth, emphasising how Onakoya’s father takes painstaking care of the bus he drives for a living, and how hard Onakoya’s mother works at selling clothes and fruits, in addition to the sacrifices they both make to ensure their children have better outcomes in life.
What is a children’s book without colourful visuals to go alongside the text? Digitally rendered illustrations by K.R. Onimole capture Onakoya’s likeness and outfitting him in his trademark fila right from his early childhood is a playful, creative choice that makes his avatar easy for readers to identify. In Onimole’s art, place also functions as character, and even in 2D form, the bustling energy of Lagos is palpable.
Literature written to inspire and motivate often gets a bad rap, but if Nigeria desires to defeat a culture of apathy and instil an ethos of civic leadership in its youth, then the daring feats and accomplishments of everyday local heroes need to be documented in a format digestible by young audiences. Doing so would spur do-gooders, children and adults alike, to emulate their examples, engage with their communities and problem-solve.
Before Ake, Lola Shoneyin had an extensive career as an educator, and is committed to children’s literacy initiatives, so she understands better than most the whys and hows of engaging youthful minds through the power of the written word. As she asserts in her author’s note, “when we read about heroes like Tunde Onakoya, we learn that people from humble beginnings can do amazing things.”
It doesn’t get any more empowering than that.
***Akumbu Uche is a writer and storyteller from Nigeria. Her works have been published by thelagosreview.ng, Aké Review, Brittle Paper, Canthius, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere.