Monday Sit-At-Home Is Purely An Economic Sabotage: Governor Soludo’s Decisive Action Is Fully Justified

CHRISTIAN ABURIME

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, America’s 32nd president immortal words cut to the heart of a universal human predicament: the most insidious obstacles we face are often not external forces, but the internal spectres we ourselves nurture into monsters.

Fear, when left unexamined, transcends its original cause. It evolves from a rational response into an unreasoning ritual, a self-imposed prison where the walls are built of memory and the bars are wrought from habit.

This “nameless terror” becomes a societal paralysis, convincing communities to abandon their own progress, to accept retreat as a permanent state, and to sacrifice their potential on the altar of a threat that may no longer exist.

The true battle for advancement, then, is not first against the world outside, but against the surrendered territory within our own collective mind.

Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo’s recent, decisive action to shut the Onitsha Main Market for one week as a deterrence measure has ignited some necessary conversations.

To the superficial or emotional observer, it seems to be a harsh punitive measure against defiant traders. But to a more discerning, dispassionate mind, it is a profound act of political and economic surgery, a courageous attempt to cut out a metastasizing tumour of fear and self-sabotage that has for too long crippled the commercial heartbeat of Anambra.

This is not an impulsive enforcement; it is an intrepid intervention to break a spell, a bold statement that Anambra cannot continue in this trajectory of self-sabotage

Why then must Anambra alone remain shackled to this ghost of a paranoid grievance? Why should we be held in indefinite captivity to a strange phobia? The perpetuation of the sit-at-home here is no longer a political statement; it is a pathological paralysis, a peculiar masochism that has outlived its cause and needs to stop now.

The sheer economic irrationality of this self-imposed lockdown is staggering. Monday is universally recognised as the launchpad of the productive week, the day when deals are struck, supply chains are activated, and the momentum for prosperity is built. For a state like Anambra, whose identity and lifeblood are inextricably linked to commerce, to voluntarily amputate this critical day each week is an act of economic suicide.

The cumulative loss is incalculable, not just in immediate revenue, but in investor confidence, in market relevance slipping to more daring neighbours, and in the slow erosion of our famed commercial dynamism. We are not just closing shops; we are closing futures, shuttering opportunities, and dimming the lights of our children’s prospects.

But is there really any more basis for the traders’ fear? This is the excuse fortress behind which the defiant traders hide. Let us examine its walls. They are crumbling. Since last year, a formidable security architecture, comprising the state police, the joint task force, and the Agunechemba vigilantes operating under the Udo Ga Chi code and backed by the robust Homeland Security Law, has reclaimed the public security.

The evidence is tangible and peaceful. The last festive season passed without any incident, an evidence of restored order and improved security of lives and property.

The bogeyman of certain attacks has been substantially exorcised by concerted, localised security efforts. To continue cowering is to ignore the facts on the ground, and to privilege an outdated narrative over present reality.

Governor Soludo’s move is, therefore, not an attack on traders but a challenge to their courage. It asks: when will we, Ndi Anambra, the legendary itinerant merchants who built business empires across Nigeria and beyond, cease to be captives in our own homeland? The one-week closure by the governor is a necessary circuit-breaker. It is a forced pause meant to jolt the collective consciousness into realising that the real threat is no longer from without, but from within, from our own continued acquiescence to a fear that is longer there

We now stand at a crossroads. One path leads to a perpetual cycle of fear, economic decay, and communal timidity. The other, championed by this difficult but essential state sanction, leads back to our essence: to resilience, enterprise, and the undaunted spirit of Ndigbo

The governor has thrown down the gauntlet. It is now for the people of Anambra to demonstrate that our famed ingenuity is matched by an equal measure of courage. We are not cowards in Anambra.

If we need the reassurance of security around our markets on Mondays, let the traders or market associations ask the state government for support.

But we must open our shops, reclaim our Mondays, and with them, reclaim our destiny. Enough is more than enough!