Olugbenga Onakoya, the father of Nigerian chess master, Tunde Onakoya, has disclosed that he didn’t at first support his son’s ambition of playing chess because he wanted him to become a medical doctor.
Pa Onakoya revealed that when Tunde was a child, he would disrupt his chess games and instead, make him focus on his studies.
He made revelation during a sideline interview with City Edge TV when he, in the company of his wife and many others at Lagos airport on Wednesday, to give the Guinness World Record-breaker a heroic welcome.
He said, “To me, Babatunde Onakoya is an angel because whatever he set his mind on you must succeed.
“As a small child, when Tunde was playing chess, I usually packed everything away from him because I wanted him to focus on school. I didn’t know that it was what would make him popular like this.
“My advice for parents is that they shouldn’t discourage their children from their passions. I wanted Tunde to be a doctor but I didn’t know that chess would make him popular like this. I thank God.”
On April 20, Tunde Onakoya broke the Guinness World Record for the longest-ever chess marathon with a time of 60 hours at Times Square in New York City, United States.
The record was before now held by Norwegian players, Hallvard Haug Flatebø and Sjur Ferkingstad, who played for 56-hour, 9-minute in 2018.