Detachment of heavily‎ armed security operatives comprising soldiers and anti-riot police, together with plain-cloth Department of State Services (DSS) operatives, has taken over the premises and roads leading into and around the expansive Onitsha Market.

The heavily armed officers cordoned off the surroundings of the popular market areas to ensure no one attempts to gain entry to the market.
The deployment of security agencies was a result of the order by the Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, to shut down the market for the next week in the first instance as a result of the traders’ compliance with the Monday sit-at-home directive by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a non-state actor.
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The state’s Commissioner for Information, Dr Law Mefor, visited the market early yesterday to confirm that the order was carried out to the letter. ‎According to the Commissioner, the market “will remain closed from Monday, January 26, 2026, to Saturday, January 31, 2026 and will only reopen for business on Monday, February 2, 2026.”

The closure was due to non-compliance with the government’s earlier directive to end the Monday sit-at-home exercise, which costs the state an estimated N8 billion each Monday as part of N19.6 billion in the South-East every week, while disrupting work and economic activities, leaving the state’s economy haemorrhaging.

Mefor said that traders were further warned that if they were not ready to resume operations on Monday, February 2, 2026, and indeed every other Monday, then the market would face a one-month closure from next Monday.

He called on the public to stay away from the Onitsha Main Market during this period to avoid any unpleasant encounters with security personnel already deployed to the area. ‎He said that all other markets in Anambra State remain open and are expected to operate on Mondays, stressing that any market found closed on Mondays will face a similar closure.
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According to him, the state‎ government assured traders and citizens of maximum protection and security, encouraging them to report any security breaches to 5111.

Meanwhile, some traders who turned up yesterday met soldiers and policemen and other plain-cloth armed officers patrolling the market area on foot.

Their armoured personnel carriers were also stationed at strategic locations around the adjoining streets and at the main arena. When their numbers continued growing, the officers told them to disperse and go home in peace.

But the traders, made up mainly of young boys, apprentices, and street urchins, protested the one-week closure of the market. They marched through major streets in Onitsha, chanting slogans including “Say no to Monday,” while holding placards with inscriptions such as “Show us the law, Soludo”.

The protest followed an unscheduled visit by the governor to the market, after traders defied the state government’s directive to resume full commercial activities on Mondays in an effort to end the long-running sit-at-home order in the state.

But a close look at the faces of the security operatives said it all; that they were not on guard for jokes. The motley crowd quickly dispersed and left for home.

Several calls to the Chairman of the Main Market Traders Association, Chijioke Okpalugo, were unanswered. One of the executive members who didn’t want his name in print disclosed that they were in a strategic emergency meeting over the unfortunate development and would make the outcome public.