When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.

I was born into a Christian household, in a parsonage in fact, so I grew up in sort of a missionary atmosphere but it was an environment which involved both the traditional religions as well as the Muslim religion, so we were exposed to all the various facets of faith, micro cultures which existed within those beliefs, and even though I've lost whatever Christian faith was drummed into me as a child, I still maintain very good relationship with all the various religions.

To achieve any change in the minds of the youth, there must be reorientation in terms of materialistic tendencies, corruption and crime generally.

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.

I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.

The gods in Yoruba mythology are not remote at all. They're benign, they're malign, they are mischievous, like Eshu for instance, tricksters, rascally, fornicators, that's a similarity to Greek mythology, for instance, you know. They're not saints, they're not saints. They're powerful. It's why they're not tyrannical. Of course, a number of them are also very, you know, benevolent, you know, there are saintly virtues to be found in them.

I think the epicentre of terrorism whether you call it cesspit or whatever you want to call it, shift, if you asked me a while ago, I would have said Somalia, Somalia has quietened a bit - and I think the epicentre right now is in Northern Nigeria.