Sit-at-home: Soludo ordered the closure of the Onitsha Main Market for one week -Shittu

It is instructive that Governor Chukwuma Soludo ordered the closure of the Onitsha Main Market for one week after traders failed to open for business, despite his clear directive to disregard the Monday sit-at-home order promoted by disgruntled IPOB elements.

IPOB members have assaulted residents, chased children out of school, and razed shops, destroying goods simply because people dared to go out on Mondays. When schools are forced to shut every Monday, the promoters of this so-called “voluntary protest” effectively waste about 42 school days annually, the equivalent of nearly two months of learning for pupils in the South-East. This is Boko Haram by another name. If the action is truly voluntary, why assault residents who defy it?

Non-state actors who seek to impose how societies should function through force are terrorists. You may dress such actions in softer adjectives if you wish, that’s your cup of ogogoro.

According to SBM Intelligence, beyond the damage to education and public health, a region renowned for its enterprise lost an estimated N7.6 trillion between 2021 and 2025 due to the sit-at-home order. There is no clearer proof that this idea is ill-informed and economically ruinous, and it should be binned as quickly as possible.

If the sit-at-home protests could not prevent Nnamdi Kanu from ending up in a Sokoto gulag, no amount of economic self-sabotage will. At some point, stubbornness ceases to be conviction and becomes an imperviousness to reason and sound judgement. It is good that there's a stronger, ongoing push to end the Monday sit-at-home.  

– Shittu Fowora