Playing Scrabble with the murderous king of Orile-Ifo

Despite being jobless during the decade-long Great Depression that ravaged the industrialised West, American architect, Alfred Mosher Butts, never turned his mind into the devil’s workshop nor allowed idleness to find employment for his hands.

Butts reckoned Americans needed an indoor game to ease the stress of the biting depression, so he invented the trademark crossword game called Scrabble in 1938. The word ‘scrabble’, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, means ‘to use your fingers to quickly find something that you cannot see’.

Since I learned to play Scrabble in the 80s and became champion at the University of Lagos and Abia State University, respectively, wordplay has luxuriated in my heart.

Everywhere I go, I unscramble the words on vehicles, billboards, number plates, packs, etc., moulding letters into words to test and increase my word power and sharpen my word recall skills. Everywhere I go, I carry a pen, jotter and dictionary with me, writing down words and reading the dictionary from páálí to páálí.

Scrabble is psychedelic: a stimulant when you win; and a depressant when you lose.

Though we lived two houses apart on Omotoye Estate, Orile Agege, Lagos, Uncle Paul Bassey—a FIFA and CAF instructor—was already a national sports oracle when my homeboys and I were fledgling undergraduates in the second half of the 1980s. Good Lord, Uncle Paul loves Scrabble! Though he was our idol, we did not have the chance to know him intimately until one day when I set a trap for him.

That day, as I opened the gate to our house while seeing a friend off, I saw Uncle Paul, aka PB, walking up the road. I put my hand through an opening in the gate and intentionally delayed the locking of the gate from outside while I waited for him to come within earshot.

When he was within range, I greeted him and stepped onto the road alongside my friend, and I suddenly began, “Yesterday, I played five premiums in a game. I beat Lanre so badly, I felt pity for him.” My friend looked nonplussed, wondering how Scrabble crept into the little talk we were having before we got to the gate.

But the arrow of my message had hit the bull’s eye. Uncle Paul stopped and looked back, “You play Scrabble?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” I said, a laughter of accomplishment welling up inside me. “Can you meet me in my flat at PUNCH Quarters by 10 tonight?” he said. That was the moment I knew my rascality na follow come. We met at 10 pm, played four games and began a lifelong journey of mentorship, love, trust and integrity.

This was how I opened the door of Uncle Paul’s home to my scrabble-playing buddies on the estate and beyond. Here comes our lineup: Niyi Adebayo (Poovy), Tayo Odusina (Scrappy), Seyi George, Adeyemi Adebayo aka Kisko (deceased); Leslie, Segun Adeyina (OB), Charles Onyeshidi (Charlo), Dele Taiwo; Duke Orusara (Ikéràbà), Lai Ibidunni (Oòshà), Kola Dada (Ògo), Biodun Oyegunle (Longman), Rashidi Odurinde (Ayétótó), among others. This is the first time I am divulging the secret of how I ambushed PB and lured him to be my friend.

Every Saturday morning, we would gather at PB’s flat, play Scrabble late into night, sleep in his flat while some would go home. We would wake up to Scrabble early Sunday morning and continue till late into the night, with food and drinks provided by PB, whose wife, Aunty, and all-male children were always happy to see us.

Oh, Aunty! May her sweet soul continue to rest in peace. She was particularly pleased to welcome us because we kept her husband company at home during weekends. With many family members living under his roof, Uncle Paul’s house was a beehive. PB, who is currently the chairman of Akwa United FC, was a former sports editor of The PUNCH Newspapers and deputy general manager, Champion Newspapers, before establishing Today Sports, a national sports newspaper, which has been rested.

To play Scrabble, you dip your hand into a small sack containing 100 tiles of calibrated English alphabets and scrabble for seven letters, which you put on a rack, unscrambling them to form English words that you place on a tile board to earn a score. If you play all seven letters at once, bingo!—that is a premium. A premium score gives you 50 additional marks to your original score.

In a video that went viral for its evilness, 73 years old Pa Areola Abraham was first shown kneeling and later prostrating on the floor as a nearby voice, which investigation said belonged to Ogunjobi, rained curses and death threats on him, his wife and children while physical assault lasted.

By his heartless conduct, the suspended king of Orile-Ifo, Òlórí-Òfo Abdulsemiu Ogunjobi, is likely not lettered enough to play the beautiful game called Scrabble. I will play some Scrabble with the letters of his village, O-R-I-L-E I-F-O, to x-ray the character of the bloodthirsty beast called king. Unscrambling the eight letters of the hamlet will give you many six, five, four, three and two-letter English anagrams.

However, I am only going to dwell on the words that describe Ogunjobi, the misfit monarch, retired ruffian and serving scoundrel on the throne. O-R-I-L-E I-F-O will give you F-O-O-L. No be so? Na so. It will also give you F-O-O-L-E-R, F-O-I-L-E-R, O-I-L-E-R and O-R-I-O-L-E.

Are you following me, dear readers? Everyone knows who a fool is, except a fool. The F-O-O-L, who calls himself a monarch, feels that since his face is not in the depressing video, he stands absolved. That assumption shows the shallow thinking of the low-cadre officials of the Nigeria Police. In the main, it is this cadre of officers, with their sawdust thinking, that investigate, prosecute and mess criminal cases up in court.

A F-O-O-L-E-R is someone or a thing that fools, tricks or deceives someone. Ogunjobi has been living in a fool’s paradise, thinking of himself as a king when he is worse than a slave. For years, he has masked his barbarity with braggadocio that the indigenes of Orile-Ifo fearfully took his butterfly for an eagle, and he soared to perch on the sun…burnt he tumbled down broad daylight ashes.

A F-O-I-L-E-R is a person who frustrates, foils or defeats. As a retired police inspector, Ogunjobi should be a foiler of crime but his attack on the Ile Oluji-born Pa Abraham showed he must have been a foiler of innocent members of the public. Rather than be a legit F-O-I-L-E-R, he must have been an illegal bunkerer, an O-I-L-E-R in the corrupt Nigerian system. I need no ‘ga’nu si’ alfa or a miracle-inventing pastor or fake babalawo to tell me that Ogunjobi never collected huge bribes while in the police. When you see the mouth of the grasscutter, you will know it can eat foliage.

Still scrabbling. When you shuffle the tiles O-R-I-L-E I-F-O, you will get O-R-I-O-L-E. An Oriole is a beautiful, vibrant songbird resplendent in its yellow and black or orange and black plumage. It is found in Europe and North America. Yellow and black colours are good on an oriole. Black and orange colours are good on an oriole. But they are not good on Ogunjobi, whose skin typifies the mishmash Yellow Fever in Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s 1976 monster hit.

A Yoruba anagram of O-R-I-L-E I-F-O is O-F-O. O-F-O means a misfortune or empty barrel. I thought Ogunjobi had the Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun; the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun; and Aso Rock in his pocket when he boasted of being the owner of Nigeria, the police and that he can kill Abraham without repercussions. But as the empty barrel that he is, Ogunjobi could not meet his bail conditions and has yet to be released from prison days after he was charged in court. I had thought he owned the central bank.

The police should not treat Ogunjobi with the gloves of camaraderie. He should be treated like a criminal suspect because Abraham said in the press conference facilitated by the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights that Ogunjobi had been involved in numerous murders in Orile-Ifo.

The score is now 2-2 between Osun and Ogun States. Osun scored the first goal with its Canadian jailbird king, who belches hemp smoke like a locomotive train. Also in Osun, we have a warmongering king who called for mayhem in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party. In 2022, Ogun State scored its first goal when the Onifojege of Fojege, Nureni Oduwaye, blinded a chef for dancing with his queen. Ogunjobi has now equalised for Ogun State: 2-2.

The person who stole palm oil from the attic is less guilty than the one who collected the oil from the thief on the ladder and helped put it down. Yoruba traditional rulers dancing the dance of shame are less guilty than the politicians who enthrone them. During elections, politicians need hoodlums to kill, maim and snatch ballot boxes. After elections, some of the killers turn up to be rewarded with traditional stools.

I wonder what would have happened to the septuagenarian if Ogunjobi and his mob had met him on a lonely road at night. Governor Abiodun has taken a commendable step. He should prove he has got the balls by going further to do what ex-Governor Olusegun Mimiko did to a Deji of Akure who publicly fought his wife.

Governor Abiodun, please, do the needful.