Although I wrote on this subject on 28 January 2026, I do not wish to repeat what I stated earlier. Neither do I intend to dwell on how former governors of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, and Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, allegedly deployed high-handedness and, in some cases, outright ruthlessness to insulate their states from the corrosive influence of those who promoted and perpetuated the evil known as sit-at-home in Igboland.
That history is already on record.
What is instructive, however, is that even after the IPOB—which supposedly initiated the sit-at-home—publicly cancelled it, and even after Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, in one of his court appearances, openly spoke against it, the practice stubbornly persisted. This fact alone should tell any honest observer that what we are dealing with today is no longer ideology, agitation, or protest—it is economic sabotage.
Those who dress up the shutting down of markets as “the right to protest” are not defenders of Igbo interests; they are, in truth, destroyers of Igboland.
What We Have Lost
During my days as a student at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, one could see vehicles popularly known as gwongworo (911) moving heavy loads of goods from Onitsha towards the North on a daily basis. Traders from as far as the Republic of Cameroon routinely travelled down to Onitsha Main Market to purchase goods for resale in their countries.
Onitsha was not just a market; it was a regional commercial capital.
Today, that reality has changed dramatically. Traders from the North no longer come to Onitsha. Lagos has become their destination of first choice. Supply chains have shifted. Trust has been broken. Reliability has been lost.
Markets thrive not merely on size, but on consistency and predictability—two qualities that sit-at-home has completely destroyed in the South-East.
The Uncomfortable Question: Who Benefits?
What makes the situation even more troubling is the growing allegation that many wealthy traders within Onitsha Main Market—including some within the market leadership—are heavily investing in the construction of plazas and markets in Asaba, just across the boundary with Onitsha.
If this allegation is true, then it raises a deeply uncomfortable but necessary question:
Who really benefits financially from the sit-at-home?
When Onitsha shuts down and Asaba remains open, commerce does not disappear—it merely relocates. Goods move. Capital moves. Profits move. Jobs move. Over time, economic relevance also moves.
This is why the discussion around sit-at-home must go beyond emotions and slogans. We must interrogate incentives. We must follow the money. We must identify the real beneficiaries of this sustained paralysis.
Those beneficiaries are the true economic saboteurs.
Why Soludo Is Right
Against this backdrop, Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo is right in his recent actions. What he is confronting is not dissent but a coordinated economic leak, one that has bled Anambra State and the wider South-East for years.
His counterparts in Delta and Rivers States were once accused of being ruthless. Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that they protected their states from the fate currently confronting parts of Igboland. Today, Delta and Rivers remain commercially viable, predictable, and attractive to investors precisely because they refused to allow non-state actors to dictate economic life.
Leadership is not always about applause. Sometimes, it is about absorbing criticism in order to prevent long-term collapse.
Conclusion
The sit-at-home has outlived any moral, political, or ideological justification it once claimed. What remains is a machinery of fear and profit for a few, at the expense of the many.
If Onitsha continues to bleed while Asaba prospers, history will ask hard questions. And future generations will not forgive us if we choose silence over truth.
The real enemies of Igboland are not those insisting that markets open, but those who benefit when they close.
—Obunike Ohaegbu
Writes from his village in Anambra State.
30 January 2026
