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.

Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture.

I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.

The work of Nigeria is not complete for as long as there is any one Nigerian who goes to bed on empty stomach.

A society that does not correctly interpret and appreciate its past cannot understand its present fortunes and adversities and can be caught unawares in a fast changing world.

But no nation can base its survival and development on luck and prayers alone while its leadership fritters away every available opportunity for success and concrete achievement.

Each one of us, and, indeed, all those who aspire to national leadership must bring their own visions, views and styles to the business of reforming Nigeria, and the search for solutions.

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

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.

If you ask me to summarise our mission, I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.

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

Yer a good lad, Atticus, mowin’ me lawn and killin’ what Brits come around.

Motivation is a state of mind, just like discouragement.

To him, freedom was greater than love. She hated that. Because she had always thought that love was freedom.

I'm not going to sit here now and say 'do this,' or 'do that.' But you must - must - expunge any vestige of racism.

There's something about these steps [in Oval Office] and thinking about everybody who's walked here and all the business that's been done here.

In my view, one of the major reasons that we have so many people in jail is that we have turned our backs on a lot young people.

The less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become.

If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.

It is interesting how keen people are for you to do something they would never dream of doing themselves, how enthusiasticall y they drive you to your own destruction.

Music tells you about the artist and what they were thinking about at the time, because the person has to think about it to sing it.