Wachuku retired to his home town, first to Aba and subsequently to Nbawsi, his village when Aba fell during the Nigerian – Biafran war that lasted from July 1967 to January 1970. During the Biafran war, he participated in the struggle of his Igbo people for freedom and justice against a country that had rejected them by not protecting them from genocide and brutality by its marauding soldiers and citizens. Later, during the war, Wachuku fell out with the Government of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu because he spoke out against the recruitment of child soldiers. He was arrested and detained by the Ojukwu Government. And was, at the end of the Biafran war released by a young Nigerian Army Officer called Theophilus Danjuma.