Travelers from southeastern states returning to their various destinations after the Yuletide celebration were stranded Monday and unable to make return trips as highways and motor parks were deserted due to Monday’s stay-at-home order. declared by the natives. Biafran people.
Most of them who had wanted to start their return trip had to sit down, postponing their trips to Tuesday due to the lack of economic and commercial activity.
Our correspondent visiting the major cities of Onitsha, Nnewi, Ekwulobia and some parts of Awka in Anambra State noted that markets, car parks, gas stations, banks and offices remained closed. Schools also did not open for academic activities.
The Second Niger Bridge, which had seen a noticeable increase in vehicular movements on a daily basis since the opening of the lane for westbound traffic, was also quiet as motorists avoided the site.
The ever-busy motor parks in and around Onitsha remained quiet and devoid of the activities for which the area is noted.
A traveler, identified as Chioma Daniel, who came to the Onitsha park hoping to get a vehicle for Lagos, expressed surprise that there were no vehicles available at the parks.
Daniel said: “Our people started sitting at home again in early 2023. I didn’t know this sitting at home is so serious. I came to the park hoping to get a vehicle going to Lagos as work has resumed but the parks are under lock and key. I’ll have to go home and come back tomorrow.
“This doesn’t make any sense, our people need to realize that this is a destructive exercise that is causing us economic hardship. It does the region no good. To the extent that the state government had pleaded for people to ignore the sit-in at home, they have refused to listen.”
Also reacting to the development, which appeared to be worsening on Monday, the national president of a human rights group, the Association for the Restoration of Human Dignity, the Rev. Jude Achebe, said that sitting at home has become a bad wind that does not brings no good to anyone, which has to be stopped immediately.
Achebe denounced the hardships and attacks inflicted on innocent indigenous and non-indigenous people, and lamented that criminals have taken advantage of the situation to mutilate, assault and steal.
He called for the election of a president who will listen to the cries of the Igbo and other agitators from other tribes in the upcoming general election for peaceful coexistence.
The rights advocate stressed the need for synergy between government security officers and the public to help tighten security to address the sit-in at home.
“Our people are not happy and because we are afflicted, that is why we are agitated, why do we have to shoot ourselves with this sit-in at home that causes us economic difficulties,” he said.
