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Podcast: Witness History
Episode: Wole Soyinka: Imprisoned during Nigeria’s Biafra war
Description: In 1967, Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka tried to stop the country’s Biafra war, in which Nigeria’s Igbo people responded to violence by seceding from the rest of the country. They proclaimed a new Republic of Biafra.When the fighting began, Soyinka was building a reputation as a poet and playwright abroad. However, in a last-ditch attempt to avert civil war, he set off on a secret mission behind the front line to meet the Biafran leader, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. When he left Biafra, he was imprisoned by the federal government without trial for more than two year...