Following the demise of former Oyo State Governor, sharp-witted mathematician and columnist, late Dr Victor Omololu Olunloyo, more details have emerged about one of his regular ‘Monday Think Tank’ columns published in the Nigerian Tribune newspaper in the 1990s.
The column, titled ‘The Tragedy Puzzle’, is a symbolic diagram laced with just seven letters that formed the complete half-page article published on April 22, 1996.
In his presentation on Olunloyo, titled ‘Mathematical Journalism: A review of Olunloyo’s ‘The Tragedy Puzzle’, Editor Saturday Tribune (Nigerian Tribune), Dr Lasisi Olagunju, x-rayed the intersection between the late former governor’s mathematical knowledge and its application in journalism and national commentaries.
Speaking during a requiem symposium in celebration of the late Olunloyo in Ibadan on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, Olagunju revealed different powerful characters that Olunloyo encrypted in his seven-letter article.
According to him, Olunloyo’s ‘The Tragedy Puzzle’ is a political commentary structured like a puzzle to provoke critical decoding by the reader.
To understand what Olunloyo did with his column, he said, one needs to understand that Mathematics allows people to identify patterns, quantify relationships, and make predictions, describing the ‘The Tragedy Puzzle’ as a representative of all and a summary of everything anyone could want to say about the Nigerian conundrum.
Continuing, Olagunju said the late ‘Monday Think Tank’ columnist and former Oyo State governor deftly used the tools of logic, abstraction, and symbolism to interrogate the complexities of Nigerian politics.
“Olunloyo wrote that article at a time when open speech could land you in prison, or in even worse situations. At a time when journalism was often reactive, Olunloyo showed that it could be constructive, coded, and timeless. He showed that mathematics could be used to illuminate power, and that symbolism could be deployed to crack structures,” Olagunju said in the presentation obtained by Tribune Online.
In his review of the 29-year-old article, the Nigerian Tribune’s Saturday Editor said the article pointed readers to a symbolic structure and a systemic failure.
The award-winning ‘Monday Lines’ columnist explained that Olunloyo, in the piece, “gave us a riddle, a metaphor and a warning. These he did in just seven letters, which he grouped into a name. That name is SADBOY, which is further strengthened with a satellite letter A.
“Each letter, it turned out, stood for a powerful figure. Together, they were the architects of whatever Nigeria we had then, and even now. They are an elite caste of politicians, soldiers, and potentates whose decisions, or indecisions, affected and still affect how this country walks or wobbles.”
Structure of the Puzzle
While analysing the structure of the puzzle, Olagunju pinpointed that the column presents a coded political message using:
“1. Anagrammed phrases: “SAD BOY” and “OYD BSA”
2. A circular diagram with labeled points: A, B, D, O, S, Y
3. A central figure/letter ‘A’ inside the circle.
4. An outlier, divisor ‘A’ following the flow, tagging along, denominating the various actors.
5. Arrowed flow – “SAD BOY → OYD BSA → A”
Describing the puzzled article as a political allegory, Olagunju discussed the three-step symbolic sequence of the seven letters, beginning with the phrase “SAD BOY”, morphing into the anagram “OYD BSA”, and culminating in a circle containing the same letters, now arranged around a central figure, a large Alpha “A.”
He stated that the construct, though brief and enigmatic, encodes a deep commentary on Nigeria’s political condition in the mid-1990s, adding that the writer, through the tools of geometry and symbolic logic, speaks volumes without naming a single individual.
Coding and decoding the puzzle
Although Olunloyo provided no immediate key to unlock the puzzle, he did send old followers of his ‘Monday Think Tank’ columns back in time, by referencing his 27 September, 1993 article titled ‘Agony in the West and the ING II.’
Olagunju explained that the 1993 article contains 20 paragraphs, with its 18th paragraph tucked with lines that unlock a puzzle that would be published three years later, in 1996.
He continued: “The tragedy of Abiola’s eventual failure will be grim to contemplate. Time, energy, tons of money, philanthropy, titles, religious activities, personal friendship and more would have gone up in smoke. My secret code, Exercise SADBOY encodes an advice to MKO. He should forget about money, time and energy. He should pray hard to God. He should thereafter try to strengthen his connections with S= Sonekan; A= Anenih; D= Dasuki; B= Babangida; O= Obasanjo; and Y= Yar’Adua.” It is particularly interesting that that article opens with Olunloyo noting that “Once upon a time, it was IBB and MKO in the central court…in the centre today is MKO and the ING Sonekan.” Olagunju quoted Olunloyo’s 1993 article that provided a clue to understanding the 1996 puzzle.
“Remember that between ‘The Tragedy Puzzle’ written in 1996 and the 1993 article is a time lag of almost three years. Was the 1993 key still relevant in 1996? Scholars have told us that Mathematical models don’t remain static; they are often refined and updated as new data becomes available, or as more complex aspects of a problem are understood. What we see in the 1996 piece is a validation of the warning of 1993 but now with reshuffled, new and better developed characters.
“So, the overall effect of these developments was a revised code that better reflects the 1996 reality. Here, we find the characters updated by Olunloyo (without naming them), but he had their positions shuffled and a new letter ‘A’ added.
“What we encounter here is a tragedy of recurrence. The seven letters S, A, D, B, O, Y, A are no accident. Each corresponds, plausibly and powerfully, to a prominent political actor of the day. This is my own reading of the puzzle:
S – Ernest Shonekan: Interim leader post-Babangida. He got and lost power in 1993.
A (first) – Moshood Kashimawo Abiola: Winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 election.
D – Ibrahim Dasuki: Then Sultan of Sokoto and northern power broker. Or, Diya, Abacha’s deputy.
B – Ibrahim Babangida: Military President under whom the crisis started.
O – Olusegun Obasanjo: Former head of state, later politician and president.
Y – Shehu Musa Yar’Adua: Politician and Obasanjo’s deputy as military leader.
A (second, central) – Sani Abacha: maximum military ruler and central power figure at the time.
The decision by Olunloyo to embed those names in an anagrammatic cycle was in a bid to dramatise a nation in perpetual political stasis — a nation where the actors change positions but remain within a closed system, Olagunju said, adding that “What Olunloyo offers here is a form of closed set in which leadership is defined by power struggle and in which there are movements without motion.”
Permutation as political critique
In his critique of how Olunloyo reshuffled the name SADBOY into OYD BSA, Olagunju said the transformation is not random, describing it as a mathematical permutation, “a reshuffling of existing elements that changes form but not substance. This reflects a political system marked not by innovation or transition, but by power tussle and recycling of fate among the same elite. The rearranged letters suggest confusion and instability.”
ALSO READ: Mathematical Journalism: A review of Olunloyo’s ‘The Tragedy Puzzle’
Speaking on how Olunloyo labelled the symbolic circle and entrapment around the six outer letters, with A (Abacha) at the center, Olagunju noted that the diagram evokes: “Central dominance with Abacha as the immovable ruler at the center of Nigeria’s political orbit.
“Perpetual return: No matter how the letters (leaders) are shuffled, the same system persists.
“Geometric entrapment: The circular form implies closed recursion, a national tragedy of repeated power without progress.
“Let us look at the two As. In a subtle move, Olunloyo places two As ( Abiola, outside the powerline, and the other, Abacha, dogging and controlling and doing whatever he liked with the system and the other members of the power elite who challenged him. This echoes the tragic tension between legitimacy and force, election and suppression, hope and betrayal.”
SAD BOY as Satirical Anagram
Olagunju further explained that the dexterous deployment of the name SAD BOY by Olunloyo makes it none other than an anagram — a type of word play in which the letters of a word or phrase are rearranged to create new words and phrases.
According to him, the scattered initials around the diagram (circle) suggest power orbiting the central figure, noting that the arrows suggest a flow of power from one group to another. “We can see how the jumbled letters are now led by an “A”, the reigning dictator, Sani Abacha.
“The chaos of the anagram (“SAD BOY → OYD BSA”) hints at disorder in Nigeria’s leadership and governance.”
On the tragedy, Olagunju said despite reshuffling the actors, the outcome remains the same.
“Repeated denomination of the actors by the alpha A produces a centralised authoritarian power in which the incumbent was the law, the big brother, trailing, monitoring, encircling, arresting, and jailing his real and potential rivals,” he added.
Providing an interpretation of Omololu Olunloyo’s “The Tragedy Puzzle”, Olagunju said the article is a satirical and encrypted commentary on Nigeria’s political leadership crisis in the mid-1990s. He said the writer used cryptic acronyms and geometric symbolism to warn of a tragic power tussle that was sure of not ending well for the actors in the drama and for the nation itself.
“Every character in that loop turned out a victim of power. One by one, they suffered what Aristotelian tragedy describes as peripeteia (a sudden reversal of fortune). Indeed, The Tragedy Puzzle was written two days after one of the actors, Dasuki, got unraveled in one of Nigeria’s endless tragedies. Dasuki, the D in the 1993 code, was deposed on 20 April, 1996 by Abacha who was not so recognized in the 1993 power calculus. If you interprete D in 1996 as Oladipo Diya, he was arrested in 1997 for plotting to topple Abacha. The A (Tony Anenih) was the national chairman of Abiola’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) in April 1993 when the first article was written.
“He lost that position on 17 November, 1993 courtesy of Abacha who sacked Shonekan as head of state that day, dissolved the political parties and took over the government. Abacha took on the A costume at that point. Obasanjo was arrested by Abacha on Friday, 17 March, 1995. Earlier that month, Abacha had arrested Yar’Adua. The man died in jail on 8 December, 1997. Abiola himself was in jail in 1996 when The Tragedy Puzzle was published. He had earlier been arrested by Abacha in June 1994. Abiola died in detention on 7 July, 1998. Abacha himself expired on 8 June, 1998. Abdulsalami Abubakar became the Alpha A in place of the dead Abacha. That was the end of June 12 .The cycle of tragedy was completed, the SADBOY prophecy made in 1996 was fulfilled in 1998.”
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