To call Shettima a voracious reader may be an injustice to the potency of his literary consummation. At the first anniversary of the passing of my late life mentor, President Muhammadu Buhari, Shettima offered one such line. At Buhari’s memorial, amid the solemnity of remembrance and the architecture of grief, Shettima did remind us that political power is ultimately an appointment with impermanence. His political humour is particularly fascinating because it is rarely humour for humour’s sake. But one thing is certain: Shettima may go on leave, but the words he has already left behind are unlikely to take one.