₦airaland Forum

Governor Charles Soludo pays visit to Onitsha main market today pic.twitter.com/MO6v9wRmbb

— Very Nigerian (@theverynigerian) February 2, 2026

The Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, on Monday visited the Onitsha Main Market to confirm its reopening, days after threatening to shut the market for one month or the area repurposed if traders continued to observe the Monday sit-at-home practice.

The visit followed warnings by the state government that persistent closure of markets under the guise of sit-at-home amounted to economic sabotage and would no longer be tolerated.

During the visit, Soludo interacted with traders and residents, inspected stalls and supervised activities across different sections of the market.

He was heard telling some traders, “I will visit your shed,” as traders and residents cheered.

The governor appeared visibly pleased as he engaged briefly with market leaders and locals, noting that economic activities had resumed.

Soludo said the reopening was significant, describing it as the first time in about five years that commercial activities were fully taking place in the market on a Monday.

Recall that the governor had earlier threatened to shut the Onitsha Main Market for one month after the one week shutdown.

In a statement issued at the time, Soludo said the state would not allow any individual or group to undermine the economy of Anambra.

“This action is not taken lightly, as I am determined to protect the economic interests of our state and its people. No individual or group has the right to halt the lives and livelihood of the people,” he said.

He urged traders and market stakeholders to ignore sit-at-home calls and resume business as usual, assuring residents of adequate security.

“I urge all traders and market stakeholders to disregard this call to economic sabotage and resume business as usual. Let us work together to build a prosperous Anambra,” the statement added.

Very Nigerian reports that traders at the Onitsha Main Market reopened their shops on Monday following the governor’s directive and assurances of security.

A visit to the market showed that traders resumed business as early as 8:45am across major sections, including Egerton Road, Ose Foodstuff Market, Young Park, Emeka Offor Plaza, Sokoto Road, Lagos Line and Marine.

The market was previously threatened with closure after allegations that some traders were observing a sit-at-home order linked to the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra.

However, IPOB’s lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, later dismissed the sit-at-home directive as fake, urging the public to ignore it.

Meanwhile, the Anambra State Police Command warned residents against coordinated misinformation by non-state actors, saying such narratives were aimed at spreading fear and disrupting public order.

heniford2:
Bought crowed 😆😂yeye d smell

JASONjnr:
Where's Peter Gregory Obi when you need him?

Probably somewhere counting how many days the president is sleeping outside the country... Or drafting statistics to quote for his followers....

I've never seen an obsessed politician like Obi and Atiku... Two funny people in one party 😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣

Segzy19:
You won't see the clown defending his people back home. He got no comment

JASONjnr:
Where's Peter Gregory Obi when you need him?

Probably somewhere counting how many days the president is sleeping outside the country... Or drafting statistics to quote for his followers....

I've never seen an obsessed politician like Obi and Atiku... Two funny people in one party 😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣

JASONjnr:
Ajeh.......

I hope he's cured of his obsession with the president

BreakingNews21:
I didn't know the Hon. Professor/Governor is also a man of the streets. Just look at the jubilation in the crowd. That can't be bought or rented!!!!!

naptu2:
Governor Soludo's closure of Onitsha Main Market

1) Every sensible person knows that Nnamdi Kanu began the practice of declaring sit at home protests. He usually threatened to declare sit-at-home protests on elections days (though he often made U-turns when politicians approached him). There were also sit-at-home protests to mark specific dates that were significant during the Civil War.

2) Every sensible person also knows that Kanu and his faction of Ipob abandoned the sit-at-home protests after he was detained. They were seeking a political solution to his detention and staging sit-at-home protests would make things difficult for him.

3) Every sensible person knows that Simon Ekpa and his autopiloters hijacked the protest. Armed autopiloters usually staged violent raids on Sundays in order to frighten people and prevent them from coming out on Mondays. I created a lot of threads about these raids and Ekpa often boasted about it.

4) Everybody knows that Ekpa held unending fund raising campaigns in order to raise money to finance the attacks.

5) Everybody also knows that the violence drastically reduced after Ekpa was arrested.

6) The violence reduced for 3 main reasons (A) Ekpa was in jail and so could no longer finance the terrorists. (B) The new leadership of the Autopiloters decided to focus on hiring lobyists to help them get American politicians on their side. It would look bad if they were meeting with American politicians and also financing terrorists.

7) The people on those threads cannot say anything meaningful and their little attempt to make sense is turned into nonsense by the next thing that I will write.

8 ) Nigerians governments, both at the federal and state levels, have done a lot to end the violence in the East. Governor Soludo did not just wake up and close Onitsha Main Market as his first step in solving the problem. Quite a lot of things have been done to solve the issue.

9) The Nigerian Federal Government put a lot of pressure on Finland to solve the problem of Simon Ekpa and he was eventually tried and jailed. Troops were also deployed to deal with the terrorists in the forests.

10) Governor Soludo met with Nnamdi Kanu in the DSS cell in Abuja in order to get him to end the protest. Kanu told the governor that he had nothing to do with the protest. Days afterwards, when his lawyers visited him, Nnamdi Kanu gave them instructions that they should make a press statement that he had disowned the sit-at-home protest and that he was against vilolence.

11) Governor Soludo also met with traders, unions, the clergy, politicians, etc in order to end the violence and sit-at-home protest. They even held a Holy Mass to signify the end of the sit-at-home protest.

12) Governor Soludo has donated a lot of equipment to the police, military and other security agencies in order to help them tackle the problem. The last round of donations was just a few days ago.

13) In fact, the Anambra State Government went as far as creating its own security outfit called Udo Ga-achi

14) These measures have worked. Previously I made threads about Autopilot attacks almost every week. Nowadays we rarely hear about attacks. People now use Mondays to hold weddings and other parties. As the governor said, he passed other markets on his way to Onitsha and they were open.

15) The fact is that there are Ipob and Autopilot sympathisers that do not want the sit-at-home protest to end. I have told you about all the measures that government has taken to end the violence and protest, these people have launched massive propaganda against all of them.

16) They said that Autopilot attacks were being done by Fulani herdsmen and all sorts of people, they said that Simon Ekpa was sponsored by Bola Tinubu, they said that Nigerian Army was massacring innocent people, they said that Simon Ekpa had not been arrested, they claimed that Udo Ga-achi was killing innocent people, there is nothing that they did not say.

17) Now the story is that Soludo has not done anything to provide security, that he is wicked, that he didn't consult anyone, etc. The simple truth is that they do not want the sit-at-home to end.

It gives them something to complain about.

As I said, many of them are Ipob and Autopilot supporters and they'll never want it to end.

Meanwhile the government constructed that market so that economic activities will take place. It generates revenue from the economic activities that take place there. It is a market, anyone that does not want to use it to trade and raise revenue for the government should be removed and replaced with someone that's ready to trade.