Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Checkmate (From Pawn to King)


Although today is Sunday instead of talking about someone we should admire and look up to, this piece is about an inspiring story.

From Epoch Bright:

In December 2015, schools in Abuja, Nigeria, had sent children home because Boko Haram attacks were growing in frequency and intensity. Kayode Adewumi owned a printing business there in Nigeria, and he got an order for 25,000 copies of something on a flash drive.

It was a poster with a logo of guns, and the words in Arabic reading “Kill all Christians. Death to Western education.”

Kayode and his wife, Oluwatoyin, realized the flash drive was from Boko Haram, and tried to return the drive and turn down the order.

But they didn’t let Kayode go easily—though their sons, Tani and Austin, knew little of what was going on at the time, Kayode and Oluwatoyin faced four heart-stopping visits from Boko Haram that drove them out of town, and then out of the country.

But after the fourth time, it became clear this was no way to raise their children. A tourist visa to the United States they had applied for months ago turned out to be a huge blessing, and the family moved to Dallas to stay with Oluwatoyin’s uncle. Subsequently, Kayode, Oluwatoyin, and their two sons, younger Kani and older Austin, relocated to New York City.

The two brothers played a made-up game that was something akin to chess. Once Tani started school in New York, he took a chess class, where he learned the real rules of the game. His curious mind took to the puzzles immediately, and his interest only kept growing as he discovered the strategies of past and present chess legends, and how to develop his own style.

Last year, the 9-year-old Tani had only been playing chess for one year when he won the New York State Chess Championship. Tani, his parents, and his brother, Austin, were living in a homeless shelter at the time, and his chess coach reached out to a reporter with their story, and things took off from there.

The family tells their story in detail in the book “My Name Is Tani … and I Believe in Miracles” written with author Craig Borlase, which hits shelves April 14, along with a young reader’s version. A movie adaptation of Tani’s life is in the works at Paramount.

3/6/22

116 Replies to “Checkmate (From Pawn to King)”

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