“Nnamdi Kanu Said Sit-at-Home Order Was Wrong When I Visited  Him” – Soludo

By Charles Igbo

Anambra State Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, has said that the jailed leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi is unhappy about the sit-at-home order imposed on Igbo land. Kanu, he said, told him the order was wrong.

In 2021, the leadership of IPOB had imposed the order in protest against the detention and prosecution of Kanu. IPOB, also, felt it could use the sit-at-home order to pressurize the Federal Government into releasing Kanu. But it backfired. For, instead of having the desired effect, the order turned the zone upside down. It crushed the zone, its economy, and wrought violence and death and rivers of blood on the people.

Till date, the zone has not recovered  from that order. Nothing is the same. Criminal gangs, hiding under the umbrella of IPOB, have given the zone no breathing  space.

But while not a few people blame Kanu for what the order has wrought on the zone, Soludo said Kanu was unhappy with it when he visited the IPOB leader  at his detention centre at the Department of State Services, Abuja, DSS.

Soludo disclosed this when he addressed the Press on Wednesday in Awka, Anambra State, over the one week temporary closure of the Onitsha Main Market for the traders’ continous shutting down of the Market every Monday in obedience to the sit-at-home order.

He told the Press of Kanu’s stand on the order:

“I visited Kanu (in detention) and he was unhappy about it. I confronted him with the question (sit at home order) and he told me it was wrong.

“We later met with the stakeholders, constituted the Justice Peace Committee which was headed by Professor Chidi Odinkalu and they have submitted their report and we have been implementing it.”

Soludo, also, blamed some unnamed individuals outside the State for being responsible for the sit-at-home order.

His words: “We also discovered that the people outside are the ones fueling it and we have held town hall meetings to tell them they are killing the homeland.

“You cannot distort the growth of people and education, the same people you said you are fighting for.

“We announced amnesty programme and 15,400 youths came out and we have rehabilitated them. We are working to give young people a life and other people are there working to give them pain.

“The rest of the world cannot adjust to our own calendar. We  cannot operate a four-day economy and hope to compete with people operating six days of the week. So we must stop. This is not because of fear of insecurity because we have over 150 security personnel working in the main market only.

“The cost is much and not as a result of loss in taxes because Onitsha generates pittance. I’m talking about the larger economy, which is more on the traders themselves. Monday is the most important day of the week and if we continue, our economy will continue to come down. We can’t train our children in a school system that runs four days a week.

“I’m concerned because you gave me the mandate to be your Chief Servant. If not, what do I lose? I can as well shutdown and use my Mondays to sleep too.

“Some politicians are involved and they think it’s politics. It is not about politics, it is about security, the interest and future of our state. It is about our prosperity, it is about our security, it is about the poor people who must go out before they can feed.

“For now, we will not name the politicians who are sponsoring them. At least for now, but very soon we will name them. They are doing this because they think they can score political points by sponsoring this.

“This economic sabotage must not continue. In 2022 and 2023 we were busy strategizing on how we would deal with the insecurity in our land. In 2024 and 2025, we used it to launch onslaught on criminals, and today I can say that Anambra is the safest state. Even if our enemies do not agree, they will count us among the safest states in Nigeria. This 2026 is for fighting sit at home. It is either they open their shops or we revoke their ownership.”