Insecurity: Multi-billion naira businesses in ruins in South-East

From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba And Aloysius Attah, Onitsha

Majority of the inhabitants of the Southeastern states of Nigeria are finding life difficult, owing to the insecurity of lives and property in the region. They seem to live by the day in view of the upsurge in armed banditry, kidnapping in some of the towns and villages in the zone as well as acts of lawlessness that has become the order of the day.

The situation has been compounded by the enforcement of the sit-at-home order by a faction of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), loyal to Finland-based Simon Ekpa. The mainstream IPOB has continued to disassociate itself from the exercise. The faction started the sit-at-home in the region on September 9, 2021, to protest the continued detention of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu following his rendition from Kenya.

The South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF) and many others have described the order as a self-inflicted economic sabotage by the Igbo against themselves. The Chairman of the association and Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi said the robust economy that used to be the hallmark of the region is now comatose, no thanks to the sit-at-home order. He said: “We are known for trade and anyone who is advocating sitting at home in the South East is evil because South East has not caused the problem of anybody.”

He further argued: “If anybody is waging war; that war cannot be in South East and it is important that our people understand what is going on. It is not in the interest of South East. You can’t kill the people, destroy the economy and say that you are fighting for South East.  We must rise to say no to this evil plan to destroy our economy and kill our people and I keep saying that there is nothing like ‘unknown’ gunmen. It is we who are killing ourselves.”

A public commentator Vitus Ozoke queried the wisdom in shutting down Igbo land every Monday while the rest of Nigeria is open for business. Although the sit-at-home order is no longer effective in many places, Saturday Sun gathered that the hangover is still there. Scare-mongering has become the order of the day in the region, especially in Onitsha, Nnewi and Ekwulobia in Anambra; Enugu and Nsukka in Enugu State as well as Aba, the commercial nerve of Abia State. On Mondays, several businesses still remain under lock and key in these places.

Aside the Ekpa-enforced sit-at-home, the mainstream IPOB also enforces compliance for staying at home anytime its leader appears in court for trial. All these disruptions coupled with the growing insecurity in the region have continued to affect social and economic activities.

Speaking at a Town Hall meeting with the market and transport unions’ leaders called to find ways to resolve the sit-at-home crisis and other social and economic challenges confronting the state, the Anambra State governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, shortly after the inauguration of his administration, disclosed that the state’s economy loses about N19.6 billion to the Monday order.  He declared that the development must stop. But consulted, the chambers of commerce, business owners and traders said though they were unable to compute their losses, they put the cost at over N8 billion.

A member of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) who does not want his name in the story because he is not officially approved to speak for the sector said players in the sector suffered over N50 billion losses in the first month of the sit-at-home order. Unverified statistics said the transport sector has lost at least N3 billion so far.  An average of one million people are said to move around, in and out of South East each day, at least at N3, 000 per traveller. Transport companies have continued to suffer deadly blows and major transport companies in Nigeria, are largely owned by Igbo businessmen and women.

Farmers, artisans and casual daily paid job men now find it difficult to maintain their families, owing to incessant threats to their lives and property by hoodlums terrorising society. Civil and public servants who had been earning salaries and injected the same into the economy through purchases of their daily family needs, are bereft of such funds. Worse still, they are owed for months on end and thereby compounding the situation.

In Aba, Augustine Iheanacho, an insurance broker, said insecurity in the land had raised transportation costs of goods from one location to the other. People no longer travel freely to certain areas in search of items needed in other towns. He urged the government to abolish checkpoints by law enforcement agents whom he accused of merely using them to collect money. He lamented that they do this while bandits and kidnappers operate in the open within such locations without being apprehended.

Kenneth Onwuesika, a building materials trader at Iheorji market, off Ngwa Road, Aba, confessed that incessant attacks credited to ‘unknown’ gunmen blocking of expressways by hoodlums to rob, kidnap and threaten innocent road users, had adversely affected the income he makes from his trade. Mrs. Evelyn Izunnwanne, a female patent medicine dealer in Aba, called on the government to make security of lives and property a national priority. 

Some Onitsha-based respondents noted that many businessmen in Onitsha today live in past glory. One of them, Nduka Obetta, an importer at Onitsha main market said that the level of turnover in sales in Onitsha markets has reduced drastically owing to the sit-at-home order.

President, Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ONICCIMA), Chief Kevin Obieri said that insecurity in the zone was before now blamed on the activities of Fulani herdsmen and bandits, until Igbo criminals also joined the fray. He said they did after seeing that the Fulani were making money from the unholy enterprise. He regretted that it has affected business travels. He asked: “If you cannot travel, how can you do business? People are being emasculated by the situation.  Associations can no longer gather again for more than one day because of insecurity and those involved in this criminal enterprise have informants everywhere.”

He said that ONICCIMA’s plan to organise an outreach in the agricultural plain side of Omor in Ayamelum LGA is, at the moment, jeopardized by the sit-at-home order. He also gave an instance of an engineer member of the Onitsha Chamber who was shot at, at a construction site recently and lost his two eyes in the attack.

President General, Bridge Head Market Traders Association, Chief Sunday Obinze, noted that the losses suffered by business people in Onitsha in the last one year because of insecurity run into billions of naira. According to him, many businesses that boomed before now have almost collapsed.  Nnaemeka Ogbu, a butcher at Ogbunike Cattle Market/Abattoir, shared a scary experience he had recently when he travelled to buy cows in Taraba State.

He narrated thus: “We left in the night and had gone for about one hour on the highway when we were accosted by heavily armed bandits wielding torch lights. They momentarily blinded us. That was how we ended up in their den. They chained us to trees and kept us without food for one week.  Five of us paid between N6 million and N12 million each before we were released. Today, we cannot go to that state again to buy cows.”