Tension gripped Anambra State on Sunday as traders and leaders of the Onitsha Main Market weighed whether to resume business on Monday amid a renewed sit-at-home threat by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra and firm assurances by the state government that markets must open.
IPOB, in a statement issued Friday by its spokesman, Emma Powerful, called on traders, transporters, banks, schools, civil servants and other sectors across the Southeast to observe what it described as a peaceful solidarity sit-at-home on Monday.
The group said the directive was in response to Gov. Chukwuma Soludo’s week-long closure of the Onitsha Main Market, which it said was aimed at curbing compliance with the sit-at-home order.
Powerful described the market closure as an attempt to “break the spirit of peaceful civil disobedience” linked to protests over the continued detention of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
However, the Anambra State government insisted that all markets would reopen on Monday, warning that the sit-at-home had moved beyond political protest.
The Commissioner for Information, Law Mefor, said Saturday that enforcement of the sit-at-home had “transitioned from a political protest to a criminal enterprise.”
Quoting remarks by Soludo during a meeting with market leaders in Awka on Friday, Mefor said all markets and shops across the state would remain open on every working day.
He added that those enforcing the sit-at-home were largely non-indigenes and warned that the government would deploy “extreme measures” if defiance continued.
According to Mefor, Soludo convened the meeting to address the closure of the Onitsha Main Market and the long-standing Monday sit-at-home, which has disrupted commercial activities in the region.
In a statement shared by the commissioner, the Chairman of the Onitsha Main Market, Chijioke Okpalugo, pledged at the meeting that traders would resume business on Monday.
Market leaders also called for a visible and proactive security presence to protect traders and customers.
Two audio clips, said to have been recorded by market leaders and circulated to traders via WhatsApp, provided further details of agreements reached at the meeting. The authenticity of the clips was confirmed through a senior government official.
In one of the recordings, a market leader speaking in Igbo said attendance registers would be introduced across all market lines and warned that traders who failed to comply risked losing their shops.
The leader said Soludo promised to deploy security operatives to strategic locations on market days to ensure safety, adding that failure to resume trading would attract severe sanctions.
He also said the governor announced plans to demolish and reconstruct the market within three years in line with the original master plan.
According to the recording, the existing market closure could be extended if traders failed to resume by Monday, Feb. 2.
Appealing to traders, the market leader urged compliance, warning that attendance would be strictly monitored by market officials and local government authorities.
“Please come to the market and open your shops for business,” he said, adding that there would be no exceptions for those who failed to comply.
