Most importantly, nothing has happened to change my conviction that freedom and the love of liberty remain the essential defining attributes of our national character as a people.

I am not sure that you, the younger generations, will like to go to war that we went through. So, we learn as the mistakes are being committed.

With each new book, the march of our national history takes a step forward. When one is present at a book launch, one is bearing witness to the birth of a new body of ideas, to the coming into being of another testimony of history.

It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.

Democracy opens new vistas and opportunities. We should use the opportunities it offers to correct past mistakes not to blunder anew.

The average Nigerian person has come to reconcile himself with the fact that his or her social progress remain essentially in his or her hands in collaboration with other fellow Nigerians and not merely relying on what government alone could provide for him or her.

Even now, we make no apologies for the choice we made. The sacrifices we made were selfless. The options we offered were patriotic while the paths we chose were well thought out.