Governor Soludo, Onitsha main market, and the SATH conundrum

I will start today’s intervention with the well-known thoughts of some ancients. Machiavelli stated the obvious when he told us that ‘There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things!’ If you are in doubt, go and ask Jesus Christ. Consequently, people resort to shortcuts, and Samuel Butler warns that ‘He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still’, a position supported by Dale Carnegie. These borrowed thoughts stress the fact that you cannot force people to truly change their minds because they might pretend to agree while still holding the same view. Of course, there is a wide difference between change and transition, and while change is easier to achieve, transition is extremely difficult. Still from the ancients, ‘It is better to discuss a matter without closing it than to close a matter without discussing it’ (Joseph Joubert). This stresses the importance of discussion and consensus in settling matters, though discussing endlessly is also not ideal.

On January 26, 2026, Governor Soludo visited the Onitsha Main Market with the usual intimidating security presence and ordered the closure of the market for one week in the first instance over the traders’ continued sit-at-home practices, which caused the state about N8 billion weekly. He later met with the traders and brought up the issue of remodelling and restoring the market to its lost glory. The link between SAtH and remodeling, why he gave such a brief notice to evacuate and why he had to order a shutdown before the meeting remain baffling. The governor went on to seal other shops and markets, suspended some teachers for being absent from school on Mondays and threatened to inflict students with similar punishments.

The SAtH with the accompanying brutal enforcement and business dislocation by NSAs (Non-State Actors) is condemnable and stands condemned, as I have written on 14/2/21, 6/2/22, and 7/12/24. It is an own goal, as some people who claim to be Nd’Igbo murder and maim their brothers and destroy their businesses in the name of fighting for Igbo interests. Even when Nnamdi Kanu, the purported reason for the SATH, which started in 2021, ‘ordered’ that it be stopped, the criminal, self-serving antics continued.

But one thing is certain. To presume that traders, who know and do nothing else beyond trading, close their shops on Mondays for the fun of it is to adopt a simplistic perspective on the matter. To assume that they do so in sympathy with the SATH enforcers is to extend the cause-and-effect narrative to a ridiculous extent. The simple truth is that while there might be a negligible few who are sympathetic to the SATH and its espoused objectives, the closure of markets across Igbo-land on Mondays is due to its brutal enforcement. The fear has propelled people who directly bear the human and material losses to stay at home, even when it is against their commercial interests. What is needed is confidence-building and visible security improvements. And before that order, the situation has significantly improved. When this madness started, Nkwo-IgboUkwu was locked almost wholly on Mondays. Eventually it started opening around 4pm and then 12 noon. Today, you can shop at Nkwo Igbo at 8 am on Mondays. People want to do their business, and they usually scan the environment and act in their best interests.

“But one thing is certain. To presume that traders, who know and do nothing else beyond trading, close their shops on Mondays for the fun of it is to adopt a simplistic perspective on the matter.”

The order by the governor has come and gone. Schools are still scantily populated on Mondays, just as many traders still stay away from their shops, arguing that if anything happened to them, the Governor would not show any interest. One of them asked me how security could have improved but the governor still moved about with an armoured battalion. Even some who wanted to travel to Onitsha on Mondays experienced transportation difficulties.

At the end of the first one-week closure, there was a ‘wonderful’ reportage of the outcomes. Some people reported that the markets opened TOTALLY, some that they opened PARTIALLY, and others that they were a TOTAL failure, all supported with pictures and videos. This is an indication that it is neither totally successful nor a total failure and that propaganda has taken over.

Luckily, it appears that the force-FULL approach is ebbing, or else we could get to the ridiculous extent of taking people to court for staying at home, driving people out of their houses and locking them out for one week, sealing all motor parks and locking out drivers who refused to ply the roads or seizing the vehicles of drivers who refused to be on the road on Mondays. We may even get to the realm of abandoned shops!

It is good to bring the SATH to an end. The issue is gradually mellowing down, and it is not limited to Anambra. Last month (April), my beloved and I had cause to travel across Abia, Imo and Anambra on two different Mondays. The experience shows that the SATH is still ongoing but was not as ‘horrible’ as it used to be. Ordering people to stop it will not work. Just as they obey SATH out of fear, they can also open the markets out of fear. It is not optimal when people start comparing the fear of the government with the fear of the NSAs. Of course, when people fear the government, it becomes tyranny. Confidence-building discussions and consultations, believable assurances, decisive actions against these NSAs and empathy with those affected and afflicted by the SATH madness are imperative for people to open their shops willingly. What makes an Igbo trader say AZUCHAAM (I no trade again) is not a very small thing. Ordering people about, which is antithetical to democracy, will not solve the problem.

Ik Muo, PhD, Dept of Business Admin, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625