Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.

We know the potentiality of Nigeria and the talent and the resources and to see it having no effect on the lives of the people, on the infrastructure, the roads, the hospitals, the schools, seeing no effect of these talents, these recourses is very frustrating. But it is the result of the damage that was done to the country, especially during the various military regimes.

One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems - where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?

My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take.

It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

I think that is one of the first things that I got clear in my mind when I began to play around with fiction, that I had to find a language and it was not in existance at the time. You have put it very well - it wasn't to be taken for granted. You had to go on and search until you found a way through the conversation of English and Igbo. The two languages stuck into each other and tried to find a way to express through one, the medium of the thoughts. That's a very exciting thing to do, a very difficult thing to do.

My weapon is literature