By Lawan Bukar Maigana
There are people who go on leave to escape books, and there are people who go on leave only to escape the office. Then there is Kashim Shettima, for whom a leave without books may be like a library without shelves: technically possible, but fundamentally incomplete.
The two-week leave has awakened the bookism in him. After years of governance, meetings, memos, policy conversations and the endless grammar of public administration, one would imagine that a man might simply surrender himself to sleep, travel with his family to some Shangri-La den in Dubai, or disappear into the soft luxury of doing absolutely nothing. But Shettima has never appeared to be a man who considers idleness a convincing definition of rest. For him, perhaps, rest is simply another opportunity to read.
This is not a new discovery. I wrote in 2022 about Shettima as Nigeria’s Modern Day Philosopher-King, drawing from Plato’s idea that leadership and philosophy ought to meet in the same person. Looking back now, I realise that perhaps I was only describing one half of the equation. The philosopher needs a kingdom, yes, but the philosopher also needs books. And Shettima seems to understand that the quickest way to empty a philosopher is to deprive him of reading.
His relationship with books is almost personal. He does not merely read them; he appears to court them. There have been accounts of him browsing bookstores while travelling, moving from one section to another and recommending books to people around him. He has also been described as someone who would choose books over material prizes.
I once had a conversation about this unusual book obsession with Rukaiya el-Rufai, the National Coordinator of Nigeria’s Human Capital Development Programme. She told me something that stayed with me: when it comes to gifts, what impresses her boss the most is a good book. Her advice was simple: when you travel, buy him high-value books. According to her, such a gift can make him happier than a designer perfume.
That, in itself, is a fascinating portrait of a man. While some people measure affection by the price tag on a gift, the intellectual measures it by the depth of thought behind it. A perfume evaporates. A book lingers. A designer bottle may occupy a shelf, but a good book can occupy the mind. This may explain why Shettima’s leave does not seem to be a vacation from intellectual activity. It is more like an intellectual retreat. The office may have been left behind, but the books followed him. The files may have been closed, but the pages remained open.
And when he finally returns to work, we should perhaps prepare ourselves. The post-leave effect in governance may not simply be a refreshed Vice President. It may be a more heavily footnoted one. Every conversation may come with a reference. Every decision may acquire a historical context. Every policy discussion may suddenly develop a philosophical foundation. A simple question could receive an answer, a counterargument, a historical example and, if one is not careful, a brief literature review.
That is the bookism. But beneath the humour lies something serious. Leaders do not govern only with budgets, files and official briefings. They govern with ideas. And ideas, when properly cultivated, are often born from the discipline of reading.
Shettima’s book habit therefore tells us something beyond the man himself. It reminds us that governance should not be an intellectual desert. Public office should not terminate curiosity. Power should not become an excuse to stop learning. A leader who reads is constantly exposed to worlds beyond his immediate environment. He encounters ideas that challenge him, histories that humble him, failures that warn him and possibilities that expand his imagination.
Perhaps that is why, for Shettima, a two-week leave can still become a classroom. He may have left the office, but he never really left learning. And when he returns, the books will return with him, quietly packed into the vocabulary and ideas that will eventually find their way back into governance.
So, Nigerians, prepare yourselves. The Vice President is coming back from leave. And judging by his relationship with books, he cannot leave without reading. Therefore, he is returning not only refreshed but also armed with refined administrative and policy ideas that can help make Nigeria better.
Lawan Bukar Maigana is a media and communications specialist, development advocate, storyteller, and social change driver from Borno State, Nigeria. He can be reached via email at lawanbukarmaigana@gmail.com.