“Power without empathy is not leadership; it is arrogance dressed as policy. Governor Soludo is an intellectual. Expectations were high that his administration would reflect foresight, data-driven thinking, and emotional intelligence. What the public is witnessing instead is a troubling gap between academic brilliance and political wisdom.”
If governance were a game of chess, then the total shutdown of the Onitsha Main Market by Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo would rank as a reckless move made without thinking three steps ahead. What is now unfolding across Anambra State was not an accident. It was a predictable outcome of political blindness.
Either Governor Soludo failed to foresee the consequences of his action, or he is surrounded by advisers who lack both political intelligence and the courage to speak truth to power. In either case, the result is the same: a government that acted first and thought later.
Onitsha Main Market is not just a trading centre. It is an economic lifeline—not only for Anambra, but for the South-East. It feeds hundreds of thousands of families directly and indirectly. It absorbs unemployed youths. It sustains transporters, artisans, loaders, suppliers, widows, and retirees. Shutting it down entirely without deep consultation, phased implementation, or robust cushioning measures was not reform—it was provocation.
Good governance is not defined by how bold a decision sounds, but by how well its consequences are managed. A serious government must ask hard questions before acting:
How will traders survive during the shutdown?
What alternatives are in place?
How will anger be contained in a region already bruised by mistrust and economic pain?
What security implications could follow?
These questions were either ignored or grossly underestimated.
Today, the streets are responding where the government failed to listen. Protests are erupting. Frustration is boiling. Old wounds—never properly healed—are reopening. The sleeping lions are stirring. Not because the people are inherently lawless, but because hunger and humiliation are powerful mobilisers.
Even more troubling is the timing. The South-East remains a volatile space, where poor decisions can easily be hijacked by separatist sentiments. Policies that deepen economic suffering do not occur in a vacuum. When livelihoods are destroyed overnight, agitators do not need to recruit—the conditions recruit for them.
This is where governance must be brutally honest with itself. No matter how noble the intention behind the market closure may be—sanitation, restructuring, or modernization—intentions do not cancel consequences. Power without empathy is not leadership; it is arrogance dressed as policy.
Governor Soludo is an intellectual. Expectations were high that his administration would reflect foresight, data-driven thinking, and emotional intelligence. What the public is witnessing instead is a troubling gap between academic brilliance and political wisdom.
Leadership is not about issuing commands from a distance. It is about understanding human behavior, anticipating backlash, and preventing crises before they explode. A governor who governs as though public reaction is an afterthought is governing against reality.
Anambra does not need shock policies that punish the poor in the name of order. It needs thoughtful reforms, gradual implementation, dialogue, and shared ownership of change.
One question now hangs heavily in the air: Has common sense become so expensive that leaders can no longer afford it? Or does political power simply dull the very instincts required to use it wisely?
If this administration does not urgently recalibrate—by engaging traders, de-escalating tensions, and showing humility—the damage may outlive the policy itself.
History is unkind to leaders who mistake authority for wisdom.
Editor’s Note
The shutdown of Onitsha Main Market exposes a deeper problem in governance: the failure to anticipate social, economic, and security consequences of major policy decisions. Reform without empathy risks instability, especially in fragile regions.
