Chief Enibe Francis, the chairman of Mgbuka Amazu Market in Onitsha, Anambra State, has reportedly been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen due to circumstances apparently connected to a local Monday sit-at-home.
Reporters received confirmation from sources in the market on Tuesday that the event took place on Monday, just after the chairman opened the market as instructed by the state’s market organizations.
According to reports, the armed thugs beat him until he was unconscious before loading him into a waiting car and taking him somewhere they didn’t know.
Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, the governor of the state, had ordered market proprietors to open their marketplaces on Mondays by holding prayer services and cleaning the marketplace and drainage systems.
And over the past few weeks, market executives in the state, under the direction of Chief Humphrey Anuna, President of the Anambra State Markets Amalgamated Traders Association, have been visiting markets all over the state every Monday to check on traders and make sure they follow the directive to open the markets every Monday.
This order, it was deduced, was intended to combat the state’s Monday sit-at-home trend.
Anuna notified the sealing of no less than seven marketplaces after the monitoring around three weeks ago for allegedly failing to follow the directive.
Anuna confirmed the market leader’s kidnapping to journalists, saying he had been briefed and that the market executives were scrambling to get in touch with him.