By Damola Emmanuel
The South East was enveloped in palpable tension, Monday, as the trial of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, got underway at a Federal High Court in Abuja.
According to reports, throngs of protesters suspected to be IPOB members blocked strategic roads in Onitsha and Nnewi, Anambra State, in protest against the trial of Nnamdi Kanu in Abuja.
Businesses were closed and the streets empty as bonfires litter most streets, with thick plumes of smoke filling the sky.
These, residents confirmed, were a direct response to signals IPOB allegedly dispatched, Sunday, ordering its members to effect a sit-at-home protest in solidarity with their detained leader whose trial resumed in the federal capital Monday morning.
Onitsha and Nnewi were worst hit as youths, suspected to be IPOB members, blocked major roads, and turned back vehicles entering Onitsha, commercial nerve centre of the South East.
Punch newspaper reported that Awka, the state capital, was peaceful and unaffected by the protest and quoted which disclosed that this was because “We got the signal very late in Awka. So, we could not mobilise to protest in Awka as they are doing in Nnewi and Onitsha. That’s why nothing is happening in Awka and environs.”
If people went about their normal businesses without fear or let, not so with Onitsha where shops, markets and offices were firmly locked. Same goes for Nnewi where the protesters reportedly attacked vehicles trying to enter the town.
