–         Says; It Is Repugnant, Unconstitutional

Barr Ephraim .C. Okafor of Okemuo chambers, has described the closure of six major markets in the state by the Commissioner for Trade, Commerce and Investment because of President Bola Tinubu’s visit to Imo State, as a repugnant and unconstitutional move that not only infringed on the people’s right but also deprived them their means of livelihood.

Barr Okafor, who stated this in a critique of the public notice issued by the Commissioner on September 30, 2025, said, “When the government begins to treat the people as servants, it forgets that sovereignty resides not in Aso Rock, not in Douglas House, but in the people themselves.

Today, 30th September, 2025, the Commissioner for Trade, Commerce and Industry ordered that all six major markets in Imo State be shut down, and further commanded Imolites to troop out in mass to welcome the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

This directive is not only arbitrary but illegal, unconstitutional, and oppressive.

The 1999 Constitution (as amended) guarantees to every Nigerian the right to freedom of movement, the right to assemble peaceably, the right to dignity of human person, and most pertinently here, the right to engage in lawful occupation and trade. By forcibly closing the markets, the government has seized from struggling traders their daily bread, inflicting more hunger on a people already crushed under the weight of economic hardship imposed by the APC-led government”.

He frowned at the way the traders and others who depend on their daily activities in the affected markets for survival were subjected to hunger, lack and deprivation adding that shutting them out from the market in the name of political pageantry is to trample on their humanity.

“Constitutional  democracy is not built on sycophancy. No government has the right to coerce citizens into forced jubilation. Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution makes the welfare and security of the people the primary purpose of government. Yet here, the government is the architect of insecurity, hunger, and indignity.

Poetically, it must be said:

You cannot stop a man’s firewood from burning and still demand he cooks your meal.

You cannot tie a goat and still command it to graze.

You cannot close the barns and still ask the farmer to dance.

This public notice is therefore not just unlawful, it is wicked. It reduces the citizens to mere pawns in political theatre, and in doing so, undermines the very legitimacy of governance.

Imolites, do not forget: onye ji igu ka eji ya — the one who holds the yam holds the knife. Your rights are your yam; do not allow them to be cut away by arbitrary fiat.

As a legal pundit, I must sound the alarm: today it is the markets, tomorrow it may be your churches, your schools, your very homes. The law must resist tyranny in small doses before it grows into a full harvest of oppression.

In conclusion: The order closing our markets and compelling mass attendance is unconstitutional, illegal, and morally repugnant. No government has the right to enslave its people under the guise of protocol. The courts must speak; the people must rise”.