Your Excellency, Vice President Kashim Shettima, Sir
Birthdays offer us a rare opportunity to look beyond titles, responsibilities, and the demands of public office, and simply acknowledge the person.
Today, I find myself reflecting on the privilege of working with you and on what the experience has taught me about leadership, loyalty, courage, and the weight of responsibility.
There are things one learns from books, and there are things one learns only by being close enough to watch another human being travel through difficult moments. Working with you has given me many of the latter lessons.
I have seen the pressure that comes with public service. I have seen moments when the easier choice would have been silence, retreat or convenience. Yet, through the changing seasons of public life, I have watched you remain remarkably grounded in your convictions, your friendships and your sense of duty.
Perhaps what I appreciate most is that, behind the office and all its ceremony, there remains a deeply human side of you — the humour, the intellectual curiosity, the loyalty to people, the capacity to remember, and the instinct to reach out when it matters.
Some of the most valuable gifts we receive from others are not material at all. They are the quiet gifts of trust, belonging, encouragement and the feeling that our contribution matters. On your birthday, I acknowledge those gifts with profound gratitude.
Public office will eventually become history. Positions will change, motorcades will pass, and today’s headlines will become tomorrow’s archives. But the measure of a life is ultimately found in the people it touched, the possibilities it opened for others, and the values it left behind.
My prayer for you today, Your Excellency, is therefore not merely for many more years. I pray that those years will be rich in health, peace and fulfilment; that the Almighty will continue to grant you wisdom for the burdens ahead; and that He will continue to preserve that rare humanity, warmth and compassion with which you relate to people, regardless of rank or circumstance.
May the years ahead allow you to look back upon your service to Nigeria with the quiet satisfaction that, when history placed responsibility on your shoulders, you carried it with courage and gave your best.
This is a toast to a most detribalized Nigerian one can meet.
Happy birthday, Your Excellency, Sir.
