Banks, business centres, eateries failed to open on Monday in Owerri, the Imo State capital, despite the suspension of the weekly sit-at-home order by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra.
According to PUNCH, which monitored activities on Monday morning in the state capital, observed that streets and roads were deserted.
While businesses, especially markets operated on a low level, few persons who came out found it difficult to get commercial vehicles, tricycles and motorbikes they could board to their destinations.
The PUNCH reports that major markets like Nkwo- Orji, Alana International Market, Ekeukwu Owerri, Amakaohia and Akwakuma markets were nearly empty.
The ever-busy Imo State University Roundabout, Government House Roundabout, Cherubim Junction, Control Post Roundabout, Warehouse Roundabout, Emmanuel College Roundabout and Fire service Roundabout all in Owerri were deserted on Monday morning.
Cooperate offices, roadside business owners in Ikenegbu, Mbari, Okigwe Road, IMSU junction and Aba Road also failed to open for the day’s business engagement.
Only a few petrol stations opened on Monday morning as cars plied the roads intermittently.
An artisan, who didn’t disclose his name, told The PUNCH that he didn’t go to work because he didn’t believe the news that IPOB had cancelled the sit-at-home order.
He said that the news that the sit-at-home order had been suspended could be a ploy to lure people out so that they would be harmed.
The artisan who spoke in Igbo language said, “I am not going anywhere. I will stay at home today because my life is more important to me. They may be telling us that the sit-at-home order has been cancelled so that we will come out and be harmed. One day with my family will not kill me.”
IPOB had declared a sit-at-home order in the South-East every Monday to protest the detention of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu. The order turned bloody last Monday as about eight persons were killed by hoodlums.
The secessionist group, in a statement on Saturday by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, however, suspended the order on, adding that the sit-at-home would now hold whenever Kanu appears in court.