Between 1967 and 1970, the Nigerian entity engaged in military conflict with the Republic of Biafra, a separatist entity that proclaimed independence from Nigeria. Biafra, led by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, represented the nationalist ambitions of the Igbo ethnic group in the country's southeast. The area sought independence from Nigeria, claiming that the federal government was controlled by the interests of Northern Nigeria's Muslim Hausa-Fulanis.

The chronicle of the Nigerian-Biafran War would be incomplete without including the terrible event in which the revered Nobel Laureate was imprisoned for his covert meeting with Ojukwu in Enugu State shortly before the war erupted. Though the most famous version of the event is that Soyinka went too far to persuade Ojukwu to abandon the independence, the playwright has always refuted such charges.

Soyinka stated that his trip to the Biafra Republic at the start of the Civil conflict was to reconnect with his artistic pals of Southeast extraction and see Ojukwu prevent a full-fledged battle. "At the time of independence, we were essentially a family of artists." There was a creative family that was being dispersed. "In 1967, I was in Stockholm for the Scandinavian-African Writers Conference."And one of the most heartbreaking things for me was that so many familiar faces from Nigeria were absent - expected but not present: Christopher Okigbo, Chinua Achebe, Gabriel Okara - the Biafrans were missing even in secure Stockholm. The battle drums were no longer silent.

It was our final chance to meet and discuss what was now unavoidable but may, just maybe, be avoided at the last moment. I returned to Nigeria feeling depressed and as if I had lost a limb - several limbs. I was wondering whether this was it. We'd become adversaries facing off across the line of fire? "There were people ready to take up arms, such as Christopher Okigbo," Soyinka recounted. "At the time, I had already run into Christopher Okigbo - it happened in Brussels - I even recall the name of the hotel - Hotel Koenisburg - purely by chance, and I knew he had come to purchase arms for Biafra," he added.

When I confronted him, he confessed it. "All of these fortuitous meetings instilled in me a sense of urgency."Later, I had a meeting earlier in London - which I explain in my IBADAN - when we discussed the prospect of traveling to Biafra on a last-minute intervention mission. Again, as I mentioned in my memoirs, Aminu Abdullahi, who is now deceased, offered to go during the London meeting. We got together at a facility called the Transcription Centre. We didn't even know which direction some of us would take. JP, do you consider yourself an Easterner or a Westerner? It was the dissolution of a thriving creative circle. We concluded Aminu should not leave since he appeared to be a northerner.

Because there was such anger, and deadly anxiety at the time, and it was reasonable... because of the pogrom that had occurred earlier... I traveled to the meeting without my colleagues, and when I returned to Nigeria, the first clashes had occurred - on the northern border - and I realized that it would soon be challenging to get to Biafra. I was agitated. "I knew I couldn't function until I crossed the lines looking for them." 'When I get there, I'll locate Christopher (Okigbo) someplace,' I added, before heading to Ojukwu. That was the reason I went, a last-minute chance for something to be done. Some folks continue to tell me that they saw me.