Tunde Onakoya was born on 6 October 1994.
He is a Nigerian chess player and coach, who holds the Guinness World Records for the longest marathon chess game.
Tunde Onakoya is the founder of Chess in Slums Africa.
He has organised a number of interventions for children across slums in Lagos state including Majidun (Ikorodu), Makoko and recently, Oshodi.
The children are engaged in a two-week session that seeks to unlock their potential through the game of chess while learning to read, write and acquire basic literacy skills.
Onakoya learned to play chess at a barber’s shop in a slum in Ikorodu, Lagos where he grew up.
Being unable to pay for his secondary school, his mother offered to work for a school as a cleaner in exchange for his school fees.
He would later be ranked as the number 13 chess player in Nigeria.
Onakoya got a diploma in computer science at Yaba College of Technology where he was a gold medalist representing the school in Nigeria Polytechnic Games and also at the RCCG Chess Championship.
He has also won the National Friends of Chess and the Chevron Chess Open.
Onakoya was featured in CNN African Voices.
Onakoya is a board member of the New York City-based non-profit The Gift of Chess.
On 20 April 2024, Onakoya broke the world chess marathon record in New York, United States. He played for over 60 consecutive hours.
Nigerians felt a sign of relief as he broke the record which made President Tinubu to congratulate him for the landmark win.
The President celebrated the Nigerian Chess Champion and founder of Chess in Slums Africa for the rare feat, but especially “for the reason driving this compelling demonstration of character, which is raising funds for African children to learn and find opportunity through chess,” said the statement.
Tinubu stated that Mr. Onakoya has shown a streak customary among Nigeria’s youth population, “the audacity to make good change happen; to baffle impossibility, and propel innovations and solutions to the nation’s challenges, even from corners of disadvantage.”
The President affirmed that Nigeria’s youths have demonstrated in all fields, including Afrobeats, Nollywood, the pulsating skit-making enterprise, education, science and technology, that great exploits can truly come from small quarters.
He commended the inclination of Nigerians – across artificial partitions – for unity, once again exemplified through their undiluted support for the epoch-making endeavour.
The President, therefore, assured all citizens that his administration remains strongly committed to creating and expanding opportunities for the youth to explore and exercise their abilities and become the symbols of greatness our nation represents in the future.
