Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan. "It has not always been so," he said. "My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.

I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.

A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.

The rural areas have been deprived by the cities in the past. Development resources and energy should be directed where the people live.

What has happened to Africa is very severe. We are talking about the collapse of this and the collapse of that, of good government, of the economy particularly. And this has hit education badly. The news you get from the universities in Nigeria is often appalling. I don't think a lot of it gets out. There is the obsession with cults and all kinds of dreadful things going on and all this is taking its toll and it is not surprising that quality of students and graduates who come out is not good. It will not be surprising if this shows in the quality of work they do.

I grew up recognizing that there was nobody to give me any advice and that you do your best and if it's not good enough, someday you will come to terms with that.