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By Chekwube Nzomiwu
When I heard about the one-week shutdown of the Onitsha Main Market, the largest market in West Africa, it sounded unbelievable to me. For those who might not know, Onitsha Market is called the largest market in West Africa, if not the whole of Africa, not just because of its physical size but also for the fact that it has an estimated annual trade volume exceeding $5 billion, the equivalent of N7 trillion.
According to media reports, Governor Chukwuma Soludo said he shut down the Onitsha Main Market and adjoining markets for one week in the first instance to enforce compliance with the state’s directive against the controversial Monday sit-at-home order of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) warned that, if the traders failed to open at the expiration of the one-week shutdown, the market would be closed for another week and, subsequently, for longer periods.
The governor vowed to come and inspect the compliance to his directive in the market every Monday and even threatened to level the entire market, if the traders remained adamant. Justifying the closure of Onitsha Main Market in a press statement, the Commissioner for Information, Law Mefor, lamented that Anambra State loses N8 billion weekly to the sit-at-home, while the South-East loses N19.6 billion. Mefor said the market would remain closed from January 26 to Saturday, January 31, 2026.
Quite frankly, my initial reaction to Governor Soludo’s action was uncertain. I did not know whether to believe or disbelieve the media reports. I am from Anambra State and, in my adult life, which is more than three and half decades now, I have never heard that Onitsha Market closed for one week, except on December 23 every year, when the market closes down for the Christmas break, lasting until January 2 or thereabouts in the New Year.
I remember those days when there used to be a rush in the Onitsha Main Market every December 23 because of late shoppers trying to beat the Christmas break. Things were usually very expensive during the rush. Anything anybody failed to buy that day, the person would wait until the market re-opened in the new year to buy the item.
Although the tradition of Christmas break in Onitsha Main Market started changing in recent years when privately-owned business plazas began to spring up around the market, it still obtains till date. So, the closure of the market for a whole week looks bizarre. I am not surprised that the action has started generating a wave of protests in the commercial city.
Sincerely, I could not believe that the governor of Anambra State, a professor of economics who obviously knows the importance of commerce to the economy, would act so irrationally. If we should go by the calculation of the Commissioner for Information that Anambra State loses N8 billion to sit-at-home weekly, it means that, this week alone, the state has lost N40 billion to Governor Soludo’s irrationality.
I thought that our governor, as a social scientist, would have tackled the sit-at-home in Onitsha Main Market scientifically, instead of acting impulsively. Has he conducted a survey or interviewed the traders to know why they are not coming out on Mondays? As the governor of Anambra State for nearly four years now, Soludo cannot pretend that he does not know that several innocent citizens have been killed across the South-East for defying the Monday sit-at-home order of violent separatist agitators.
Besides, I have not heard that the government of Anambra State procured bullet-proof vests for traders in Onitsha Market. Common sense should have told Governor Soludo that he moves about the way he likes on Mondays because of the battalion of soldiers, squadrons of policemen and other security operatives in his convoy.
Many people in the South-East have not forgotten the reign of terror across Igboland in the not too distant past. Anambra State was an epicentre of the violence, often linked to the Eastern Security Network (ESN), the militant wing of IPOB. Many people, both innocent civilians, security operatives and members of the secessionist group, were killed. Police stations, public and private property were destroyed.
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Many people in the South-East witnessed the violence firsthand. They are still living with the fear of what they saw. Overcoming fear is generally not easy. It often requires significant effort, patience and time. It also requires consistent action, but definitely not the kind of irrational action taken by Governor Soludo. You cannot force a trader who fears for his safety to open his shop. Life has no duplicate.
Shutting down Onitsha Main Market for one-week is even a heinous crime against humanity in itself. Both the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) primarily protect the right to work and earn a living under the international human rights law. These international conventions cover the traders in Onitsha Main Market.
The traders are not at the market solely for the purposes of paying taxes and levies to the Anambra State Government. They are at the market to earn their living. Coming out of the festive period, January is usually a very difficult month for most people in the country. The traders in Onitsha Main Market are not excluded.
Besides fending for their family, the traders have to feed their children and pay their school fees. Not everybody is lucky to have made so much money from the CBN to afford to send their children to study in the UK like Governor Soludo.
The traders will equally settle rents and other bills this January. Those who do business in rented shops will renew their rents. Some of them are operating with bank loans. How are the traders going to meet all these obligations when they have been locked out of the place where they earn their living?
The traders are also affected by the “painful economic reforms” of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which are tacitly supported by the governor of Anambra State. So, Professor Soludo, please, take it easy.
If your threat of levelling the market is a joke, I think you have taken the joke too far. Which loss is bigger between Anambra State losing $8 billion monthly revenue and losing a market with an estimated annual trade volume of N7 trillion? The second option is unthinkable.
Soludo, God made you our governor. Whether we voted for you or you bought your way into office is now immaterial. You should, please, be careful so that history does not record you as the worst governor of Anambra State.
Remember that the internet never forgets. The internet remembers that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala once called you the Worst CBN Governor. Dr. Ngozi gave you this “digital tattoo” when she served as the Coordinating Minister of the Economy under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. She was angry with you for grading her principal “F9” in the management of the economy.
Your second term, beginning from March 17 this year, offers you an opportunity, even if not to erase the “digital tattoo” given to you by the current Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO), but to avert earning another one: The Worst Governor of Anambra State.
•Dr. Nzomiwu, MNIPR, a commentator on national and international issues, writes via [email protected]
