I believe that prizes are useful things for the disciplines, whether we are talking about chemistry or we're talking... It motivates, it, you know, inspires, it encourages and it brings, in the case of literature, it brings literature, the arts out of the ghetto.

I come alive when I have assisted in bringing out the printed word on the stage, you know, and I enjoy directing plays. It's a tactile process, theatre, unlike a number of other forms of the creative work.

After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.

We do not ask the mountain's aid to crack a walnut.

Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it's the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.

It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own salvation.