I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.

Next to the commodities of corruption, and religion, however, Nigeria is the world capital of rumour mongering.

As I grew older and more mature, I've been able to move beyond the immediate response of violence to a projection of the pragmatic, political consequences of that violence. So it's an effort to attain equilibrium.

The British inclined more towards the feudal mentality, the feudal structures rather than the more radical progressive elements who would re-shape society and institute pretty egalitarian systems of governance with opportunity for even disadvantaged people and so I found that decolonisation was not just the end of political struggle in Nigeria.

It's the place to begin, always -- to return to home, literally.

Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.

I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.