By Valentine Amanze
(7-10-2025)
Monday September 29, 2025 remains green in my memory.
The day preceded the arrival of President Bola Tinubu to Owerri for the official opening of the overhead bridge built by the state government.
Major streets were being repainted for the august visitor, as I waited for the repair of my laptop computer at the Tetlow Street, the hub of information technology in Owerri.
Looking outside, I observed live, the ordeal of the Igbo enterprenuers in the hands of government officials.
The experience was nasty, bitter and wicked.
Imagine the government that is begging for foreign investors and, at the sametime, frustrating businesses in its localities.
It pained me that I watched the movie after reading about the Lagos State government’s demolition of shops and properties of the private sector investors at Trade Fair Complex, Ojo.
I never imagined that the Igbo could suffer the same fate in Owerri.
Imo and Lagos are governed by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
At about 2.30pm, the presence of gun-carrying government officials was noticed in the street. They came with a caterpillar (pay-loader) and tapes.
Their presence forced temporary closure of businesses in the everbusy street, as people trooped out to watch what was going on.
Before I could gather myself, their payloader was already demolishing the shop I was staying with my son. We managed to escape, as fuel miraclously finished in the payl-oader.
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Before they could refuel, the leadership of the local people had met with the officials to stop further destruction.
On enquiry, I was told that such had become the order of the day in Owerri, the capital of Imo State, and its environs.
The victims lamented that despite the payment of all sorts of levies to the government, the officials still harass and extort money from them by destroying their businesses.
Chukwuma Nwoha Street earlier suffered the same fate. No shop along both sides of the street was spared by the bulldozer of the state government officials on the guise of not getting clearance from the appropriate government agency.
In Lagos, the demolition of people’s houses and businesses is nolonger making headlines because of its frequency.
Recalling the experience of the Igbo businessman, whose foreign partners witnessed the destruction of his shops and goods worth millions of naira at the Trade Fair complex by the Lagos State government, I feel sad.
Anytime Lagos markets are on fire; who suffers most? The Igbo. It is however strange that the ongoing government destruction of properties has ethnic colouration.
It is unfortunate that the APC-led state government justified the ethnic dimension of the matter.
Lagos State Commiddioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Olumide Olayinka, in a live programme in Channelstv, made it a tribal issue.
He said that the state government would continue to destroy the properties solong their owners do not respect the people and their culture.
If Olayinka had said that the property owners contravened state government laws it would have been ignored; but the reason given was inadequate.
If the APC government does not stop these destructions now, the consequences will be difficult to control.
It is very unfortunate that the federal government is closing its ears on these state-sponsored destructions.
Even a federal lawmaker and Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, in Umuahia at the weekend wept over the level of destruction of Igbo businesses and properties in Lagos.
He also appealed to the Lagos State government on behalf of the Igbo, who are victims, to spare their investments in the state and also assist them to regularize their documents.
But, one thing the present government in Nigeria does not understand is that insecurity is no respecter of person, tribe and party.
What happens when the victims of this government’s insanity fight back? A word is enough for the wise.
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