Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo has announced the systematic dismantling of 62 criminal camps across the state since 2022, a security offensive he claims has positioned the state as one of Nigeria’s safest. More significantly for the national economy, Soludo declared the effective end of the debilitating Monday sit-at-home order that has for nearly five years paralysed commerce in the South-East, Nigeria’s most industrious regional economy. Speaking after a closed-door meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Abuja, the governor unveiled ambitious plans to regenerate Onitsha Main Market, West Africa’s largest trading hub, signalling a potential turning point in the region’s long struggle with insecurity and its immense economic consequences.
The economic stakes are quantifiable and staggering. According to a report by SBM Intelligence, enforcement of the separatist-inspired sit-at-home directive between 2021 and 2025 was linked to at least 776 deaths and 332 violent incidents, with Anambra and Imo states recording the highest toll. More critically, the report estimated cumulative economic losses of approximately N7.6 trillion due to repeated market closures, disrupted supply chains, and paralysis of trade and transport across the five South-Eastern states. Soludo offered his own grim arithmetic: each lost Monday represents 20 percent of the formal and informal work week. “If you’re thinking in terms of those informal sectors that work Monday through Friday, every Monday lost is 20 per cent of the work week,” he explained. “Schools shut down on Mondays, that’s 20 per cent lost.”
The human and commercial cost extended far beyond immediate income forfeiture. Soludo warned of a deeper, structural economic injury: the diversion of investment. “You’re not just losing income 20 per cent, but you’re also losing opportunities for growth because some people are going to divert their businesses and investments elsewhere because we are not open for business,” he said. This opportunity cost, difficult to quantify but devastating in its cumulative effect, has seen capital and enterprise migrate from the South-East to more predictable business environments in Lagos, Abuja, and even neighbouring West African countries. The region’s comparative advantage in manufacturing, trade, and services has been systematically eroded by five years of coerced idleness.
The most tangible symbol of this economic revival is Onitsha Main Market, a sprawling commercial behemoth housing over 45,000 shops and serving as the primary distribution node for goods moving from the coast to the entire hinterland. Soludo reported that the market is now fully operational on Mondays, with tens of thousands of traders in attendance. “I went there about a week ago on Monday. If you saw the joy of the people, tens of thousands of people there chanting and rejoicing that a new dawn has come,” he recounted. He described crowds so dense that “you couldn’t find space to even put your foot.” This revival is not merely symbolic. Onitsha market’s supply chains feed commerce across Nigeria and the West African sub-region. Its reopening on Mondays injects predictability into regional logistics and restores confidence in the South-East as a viable trade corridor.
Soludo has pledged a comprehensive regeneration of the market, which he described as having been “badly run down” over years of neglect and ad-hoc encroachment. “All the parking lots there, they took them over and built up shops,” he noted, promising to restore the facility’s “pride of place as the premier market in West Africa.” This commitment signals a shift from crisis management to long-term economic planning, addressing not only security but the physical infrastructure and urban planning deficits that constrain the market’s productivity.
The governor credited the sustained security operations, which have dismantled 62 criminal camps, for creating the enabling environment for this commercial recovery. While declining to provide operational details, he stated firmly: “I can’t allow criminality to dominate our place.” He also welcomed the Indigenous People of Biafra’s official cancellation of the sit-at-home order on February 8, 2026, following a directive from its detained leader Nnamdi Kanu. This convergence of military pressure and political accommodation has produced what Soludo describes as a “new dawn.”
The Christmas 2025 season provided an early indicator of renewed confidence. Soludo reported “heavy traffic all over the state” during the holidays, which he characterised not as congestion but as “a celebration of the return of security of lives and properties.” For a region long defined by empty streets and shuttered shops, traffic is now a measure of economic resurrection.
The South-East accounts for a significant share of Nigeria’s non-oil GDP, particularly in manufacturing, services, and regional trade. Its sustained recovery from five years of enforced economic paralysis carries national implications. Restored confidence in the region’s security architecture can redirect investment flows, improve supply chain efficiency, and reduce the inflationary pressures caused by disrupted distribution networks. The N7.6 trillion lost to the crisis cannot be recovered, but the prevention of future losses and the gradual recapture of diverted investment represent a substantial economic opportunity. Governor Soludo’s declaration that “this year must be an end. Enough is enough,” is not merely a security pledge. It is an economic strategy.
