By Tunde Fagbenle

“MEET F.O.,” I said, introducing the man with the square face and that perpetually undecided beard.

“F.O.? Nibo lo n fo lọ?”
(Where is he flying to?)

Such is often the fate of introducing  Prof. Femi Osofisan to unsuspecting company. The response is usually playful disbelief. This unassuming gentleman? The national icon? Nah!

The simplicity—indeed the sheer ordinariness—of his mien seems almost suspiciously at odds with the giant reputation. Even his speech conspires in the deception: unhurried, gentle, and delivered with a disarming innocence behind which his trademark wit quietly lands its blows.

My wife, Buki, and I finally moved into our Ibadan home in 2013—some 15 years after it had been built. The long story of how we eventually accepted it as our “permanent residence” is one for another day. What matters here is that our full initiation into the fold of U.I. theatre people was, in effect, consecrated by none other than the eminent Emeritus Professor of Theatre Arts himself, Osofisan, in 2019.

Then came COVID, that great rearranger of human habits. Offices emptied, schools fell silent, clubhouses thinned out, and everyone was forced to rediscover dormant creative instincts. Being the incurable sports addict that I am, I quickly acquired a standard table-tennis set and transformed the frontage of our humble abode into a makeshift recreation centre and social rendezvous.

And thus, by one of history’s stranger mercies, the adversity of COVID gifted us the convivial company of F.O., often arriving with a merry delegation of U.I. comrades in tow — my egbon Prof. Bode Lucas, Prof. Remi Raji, Ropo Ewenla, Lanre Oladoyinbo, and othersn — for evenings of table tennis, barbecue, and drinks washed down with the seriousness such evenings deserve. Surrounded by flora, fauna, and free-flowing banter, the atmosphere became so delightful one was almost tempted to raise a toast to the damned pandemic itself.

That was how a closer friendship with F.O. truly began, bridging the many earlier years in which we knew each other only by literary reputation. I count myself enriched, regularly sipping from his overflowing cup of calm wisdom, vast knowledge, and magnanimous heart.

Indeed, his generosity once caused our mutual friend Bisi Ogunbadejo and me to express open surprise that F.O. is an Ijẹbu. We even suggested, mischievously, that perhaps a paternity recheck might be in order.
“Ignorant Araokes!” he fired back.

Now, as F.O. clocks 80, just a wee step ahead of me (the last of which I will not hear), it is perhaps too late for him to fully benefit from my repeated efforts to add value to his physical wellbeing. Let this serve as fair warning to anyone tempted to take up the same noble cause: F.O. is never lacking in the desire to exercise. It is the execution that remains perpetually theoretical.

Believing his repeated declarations of readiness to join me in tennis, I once went to the trouble of fully kitting him out—racket, balls, bag, the works—and even secured a coach.
Did F.O. show up at the club?
He did.

Weeks later.

Late at night.

When the nets were down and beer quaffing had begun.

That, needless to say, was the glorious end of F.O. and tennis.

The same fate befell squash, the gym, and, in the latest chapter of aspirational recreation, swimming. I have done all humanly possible to help F.O. attain the easy age of 100. Should he fall short, posterity must note that the blame lies squarely with him. I have since washed my hands off the matter.

Still, F.O. is not entirely a lost cause where club life is concerned, as his dear wife—my long-suffering sister, Nike, herself an eminent Professor of Computer Science at U.I.—will surely attest. As a dutiful husband, F.O. never forgets to take home something for the wife: akara, buns, bushmeat, fish pepper soup, whatever the evening yields. I strongly suspect this thoughtful takeaway ritual serves as his passport—a diplomatic peace offering that secures safe passage for yet another evening at the watering hole.

And, of course, I shall be seeing him there.

80 hearty gbosas to F.O.—the quintessential humorist, playwright, theatre guru, humanist, and cherished friend.

Osofisan turns 80 on June 16, 2026.