SOLUDO AND SIT-AT-HOME ORDER

The Southeast needs the support of security agencies for businesses to thrive

The closure of Onitsha Main Market for one week following traders’ failure to open for business despite Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo’s directive to disregard the Monday sit-at-home order linked to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is generating a needless controversy.  The media aide to the Governor, Ejimofor Opara, narrows the issue to economic sabotage: “If you look at the humongous economic loss during each Monday sit-at – home you will discover that it is a rip off on the economy and that of the business community.”

We endorse the position of the Anambra State Government. Initially conceived as a display of civil disobedience to demand the release of IPOB’s detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu, these Monday shutdowns have become a social problem. The economic hemorrhage is multiplied by the fact that most people in the Southeast operate in the informal sector as traders, shop owners, artisans, craftsmen, transporters, industrialists, wholesalers, and retailers of motley merchandise. Shutting down the economic space and closing schools in the entire zone has become counterproductive to whatever point IPOB may be making. But the sit-at-home order is also indicative of a larger erosion of political authority and serial failure of the State to restore law, order, and security.

This is the fifth year since IPOB first imposed its sit-at-home order in the Southeast. On those days, the roads, markets and many schools are usually deserted more out of fear. But it is not only Soludo that is concerned about the implications of the order on the livelihood of the people. A sobering May 2025 report by geopolitical risk analysis firm, SBM Intelligence, titled ‘Four Years of Disruption: Unmasking the Impact of IPOB’s sit-at-home order in Southeast Nigeria,’ documented how this weekly act of protest has morphed into a recurring cycle of fear, economic paralysis, and tragic violence. During the lockdowns, businesses, offices, markets, and other essential services are compelled to remain closed. Urban streets, interstate highways and sometimes schools are usually deserted.

 What began as a symbolic gesture of solidarity quickly descended into a far more complex and coercive reality. The analysis also underscores the sinister role of heavily armed elements—often referred to in hushed tones as ‘unknown gunmen’—in enforcing compliance. Commercial nerve centres like Onitsha, with its sprawling main market, and Aba’s Ariaria International Market, a hub for manufacturing and trade, effectively become ghost towns every Monday. Due to these enforced shutdowns, the SBM report estimates regional losses to have exceeded N7.6 trillion within the first two years alone. The transport sector, a lifeblood for inter and intra-state commerce, has bled profusely. The report also touches upon how agricultural products often rot due to transportation blockades and how investor confidence, both local and international, has plummeted based on their risk assessments.

The guerrilla-style attacks on security installations and personnel have escalated the cycle of violence, leading to increased militarisation. With frequent clashes between security forces and ‘unknown gunmen,’ there have been many unexplained extrajudicial killings with students across the five Southeastern states—Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo—losing countless schooling days. Access to healthcare and other essential services also becomes perilous on these enforced lockdown days.

Now that Soludo has decided to stand up to the miscreants who make life difficult for the people of his state, he needs the support of the security agencies. We must put an end to the lawlessness that has claimed the lives of hundreds of people and rendered economic activities almost prostrate in the entire Southeast. There is now a test of will between the governor and IPOB. In the interest of Anambra people, the governor must win.