In a tense and uneasy test of wills, traders at the Onitsha Main Market offered only token, fearful compliance with Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s ultimatum to end the Monday sit-at-home, exposing the severe limits of the government’s power in the face of separatist intimidation and public fear.
A Market of Ghosts and Sarcasm
Despite a weekend agreement where market leaders promised to obey Soludo’s order, the reality on Monday, February 2, was starkly different. While the gates of major markets like Onitsha Main and Ogidi Building Materials were open, they led to deserted aisles and locked shops. At Onitsha Main’s Emeka Offor section, limited activity was observed, with some traders opening only briefly to serve a handful of customers before quickly shutting their doors “out of fear of possible attacks.”
Other major hubs were completely paralyzed. Ochanja Market was “completely deserted,” and the sprawling Ogidi Building Materials Market remained “completely shut, with no traders or customers in sight.” The scene was captured in bitter sarcasm by traders who risked visiting. One, surveying an empty market lane, remarked, “Business activities are active, everyone is out here now; come and buy whatever you want.”
Another mocked the governor’s threat to take attendance: “Tell Soludo to bring the register, let’s mark attendance because we have come.”
A State Paralyzed by Fear, Not by Choice
The partial, symbolic compliance in one market masked a wider regional shutdown. Across Anambra State—in Onitsha, Awka, and Nnewi—movement was highly restricted, and usually busy roads were “strikingly quiet” as residents stayed indoors. This was not a voluntary protest but a response to a “total shutdown” order from the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), issued to counter Soludo’s decree and demand the release of leader Nnamdi Kanu.
IPOB framed the sit-at-home as a “legitimate and voluntary civil protest,” a narrative underscored by a trader’s grim observation at Ochanja: “Once this our generation finishes, God will surely miss us.”
Why It Matters
Governor Soludo’s “hollow victory”, consisting of a handful of shops briefly open under the watch of heightened police patrols, has come at a high cost. It has been revealed that his threats of demolition and eviction cannot overcome the pervasive fear of violent reprisal. The real power in Anambra’s streets is not the government’s decree but the silent, enforced authority of the sit-at-home, leaving the state’s economy a hostage to a protracted political struggle.
