Two recent viral pictures showing Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, standing and sitting in a space defined by an abundance of books, grabbed my attention. The setting was a bookshop in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa.
“He wasn’t in a hurry,” according to an eyewitness who accompanied him to the bookshop, Gimba Kakanda, the lead consultant on public policy and politics at The Cambridge Collective. In a published article titled ‘Book-hunting with Mr Vice President,’ Kakanda said he witnessed Shettima’s “unquenchable thirst for books, profound intellectual curiosity, and insightful perspectives on writers and subjects. These topics spanned domains ranging from economics and philosophy to the intricate realm of politics.”
Their visit to the bookshop happened on the sidelines of the 2023 BRICS summit in South Africa, August 22 -24, where Shettima represented President Bola Tinubu.
“Sometimes,” Kakanda narrated, “he would sit in between reads and then rise to proceed to other sections. Senator Kashim Shettima appeared to have an interest in almost all kinds, except for, by his admission, motivational books, which of course are mostly superficial philosophical projections.”
At some point, according to him, Shettima said: “You should read this book. It’s Mariana Mazzucato’s enlightening opus, The Value of Everything. She offers a caricature of capitalism and a penetrating take on the subject.” He wrote: “With gratitude, I accepted the book.”
”A personal philosophy” informs the way Shettima buys books in the cities he visits, Kakanda observed, and quoted him as saying, “You know the most accurate portrayal of a people or culture is found in the books you buy in their communities. Such books are the most credible reflections of their realities and experiences.”
Buying books is one thing, reading them is another thing. “But even as the collection of books grew, I had no doubt he was going to read them,” the eyewitness said, relying on history. He recalled: “I had personally observed Senator Shettima‘s remarkable ability to devour substantial volumes within a day and yet retain every intricate detail. One particularly memorable instance of this occurred in 2018, following the public presentation of former President Jonathan’s memoir, My Transition Hours, which distorted certain events of his tenure as governor of Borno State.
“Astonishingly, merely a day after the book’s release, he had not only completed reading it but had also penned a comprehensive critique outlining the inaccuracies it contained.” Kakanda added that he had been struck by “such a feat,’’ considering that Shettima was at the time governor of Borno State, and had wondered how he found the time to read the book.
Another fascinating narrative about the book lover, by another writer, caught my attention as I tried to find out more about this leader who reads. In an article published some days before Shettima’s inauguration as vice president in May, Olayinka Olusegun, a former journalist who is now a farmer in Shaki, Oyo State, supplied corroborative information. ”I have known him for 22 years,” he wrote.
He recalled how, in August 2004, Shettima had requested that he should help get two copies of a book by Sam Nda Isaiah, Selected Writings on Governance, Democracy and Statecraft, quoting him as saying, “I believe in the Nigerian project and we can make this country work someday.” He had visited him in his office at Zenith Bank, Maiduguri, Borno State. This was seven years before he became governor of Borno State (2011 -2019), 15 years before he became senator, Borno Central (2019 – 2023), and 19 years before he became vice president in 2023. The writer said he delivered the books “a day later.”
Interestingly, he also provided further information that may partly explain Shettima’s remarkable interest in books. “Not many know about his humble beginning as the son of late Ba Shettima, a man who sells religious books at Monday Market in Maiduguri,” he stated.
Yet another gripping eyewitness account, by a different writer, reinforced the narrative of Shettima as a leader who reads. Isa Gusau, his spokesperson as governor of Borno State, painted an illuminating picture of their visit to a bookshop in Oslo, Norway, in February 2017. Gusau was then Special Adviser on Communications and Strategy to the governor, and they were in Oslo for “a Humanitarian Donor Conference jointly organised by Norway, Germany and Nigeria.”
His published article is titled “Oslo: The ‘pains’ of shopping with Gov. Shettima.” He narrated: “Governor Shettima and I arrived at Paleet shopping centre, a famous mall at Karl Johans gate, opposite the royal palace of the Norwegian monarchy in the city of Oslo. As we walked into the mall, I began to see branded items: clothes, shoes, watches, perfumes, name them. The governor kept walking. I was wondering what else he wanted. I tried to bring his attention to the items, he said he saw them. He stopped by an information desk and asked where he could find a store called Tanum. The officials pointed in the direction. We finally located the place and guess what, it was a mighty bookstore.
“On entering, the governor wore a cheerful face as if he had landed on a diamond. An old man at the bookstore asked him his area of interest and Shettima said nonfiction, mostly books on Leadership, biographies, politics, history, economies, education and culture of different societies and nations. The attendant made some recommendations but before he finished calling book titles, the governor told him names of the authors and said he had read the books.
“I am looking for books exclusive to Norway, something in English, written by famous Scandinavian authors,” Shettima said. After spending four hours of very patient stop-overs at different shelves, the governor picked dozens of books. I remember six of them he set aside for reading throughout our trip from Oslo to New York. The list included Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations; Northmen: The Viking Saga, AD 793-1241; The Sámi Peoples of the North: A Social and Cultural History; One of Us: The Story of a Massacre and Its Aftermath; The Man Who Created the Middle East: A Story of Empire, Conflict and the Sykes-Picot Agreement; Germany: Memories of a Nation.
“To my frustration, there were many other books he bought. Don’t ask me what happened next because we returned to the hotel with only a box full of books.”
Shettima, who will be 57 on September 2, got a first degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Maiduguri in 1989, and a master’s degree in the same field of study from the University of Ibadan in 1991. After a teaching stint at the University of Maiduguri, he worked in the banking sector, and later served as commissioner in five ministries in Borno State before he became governor.
These testimonies highlight his bibliophilism. As vice president, he may well be a metaphor for the grade of well-informed leaders Nigeria needs for advancement in the knowledge-driven age.
