Kofoworola Bucknor

"Being a woman, I wanted to be one of the first in politics to make a mark in Nigeria."

"Other contestants were fighting among themselves. There was money exchanging hands. I went into the primaries with 26 delegates and my delegates were literally bought off me and I was reduced to nine."

"If you believe in something you must stand by your belief. You cannot start wavering because of material benefits."

"We were on the threshold of being an independent state and those who formed the Egbe, they saw what was going on in Europe – free health, free education and all that – and they wanted to translate same to Nigeria so that we could move forward and if possible catch up with the western nations."

"Mandela was a unique human being, you don’t have many like him; I think he was like a ones-in-a-lifetime person. I must say I am very happy to have lived during his lifetime. He was a marvelous person, very courageous, he had vision for his people and he carried that vision through. I only pray that we have somebody like Mandela in Nigeria to lead us to the promise land."

"We are a resilient people and we don’t give up when we fight for just causes until we triumph."

"The things I didn’t do right can no longer be corrected. So, there is nothing I can do about it. We all make mistakes, we all take wrong steps, so, I think one should not dwell on things that one did not do right but dwell on things that you want to do."

"Politics teaches one about life. It also teaches one about human nature because you meet all sorts of people in politics, as a result of that you learn about life."

"One will not expect a human being to behave the way he behaved especially to someone who had never done anything wrong to him."

"The greatest lesson life has taught me is to fear God. Once you fear God you will approach everything in life with the fear of God, therefore you wouldn’t do what you are not supposed to do."