I was born in 1966, at the beginning of the Biafran-Nigerian Civil War, and the war ended after three years. And I was growing up in school, and the federal government didn't want us taught about the history of the war, because they thought it probably would make us generate a new generation of rebels.

When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which we are not women; that's essentially what it is.

I truly believe that writing is a continuum - so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better. I don't write essays as often as I should.

The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.

When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.

My relationship with God and my parents, that's what keeps me together. I know that everything could end as soon as it starts.

I'm really thankful to God, man. Like now, I'm really making a real comeback with my group. With or without a record, with or without a movie. And behind all the negative press behind this movie.

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.