The senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, has said that the late award-winning poet, Ikeogu Oke, saw his death coming.

According to Shehu, he met Oke in person two weeks ago for the first time, and that the poet told him they will not be able to meet again.

Shehu wrote in a tribute to the fallen poet,

“I join millions of our countrymen to mourn Ikeogu Oke, the prize-winning poet. I met his person for the first time two weeks ago. Before then, Femi had spoken very well about him.”

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“I told him that I read his recent writings and he asked me if I had been impressed by them. When I observed that he looked unwell, he told me about his recovery from a recent surgery. Throughout the meeting, he was warm and affectionate.

“I don’t know what others will make of his telling me at that time that I and him will not meet again. To this, I protested and assured that we will meet again and again.

“He then requested me to join him in a photo and thereafter, he embraced me and said goodbye. Few deaths have shocked me as this one. May God give his family the fortitude to bear this loss.”

Oke, 51, died on November 24 in a hospital in Abuja from an undisclosed ailment.