why okigbo wrote

Christopher Okigbo, the Nigerian poet began his fight against the Nigerian regime with words and poetry. Eventually, he continued his war by carrying and using a gun, but his writing will long be remembered. The brief excerpt below was written about Okigbo by Abani;

"........he believed that poetry was powerful enough to affect some kind of change or to halt some kind of progress. And I think for him, (and this is entirely my perception of it, Chris died before I was born), I think the moment he lost faith was when the war happened anyway—in spite of all the warnings. He lost faith in the power of poetry and I think for him that’s when he became a full-fledged soldier. He felt that the gun was possibly the only answer. "