What does Monday really cost the East?, by Stephanie Shaakaa
Every Monday in Eastern Nigeria, the streets tell the same story.
Markets are shut. Schools are locked. Banks are dark. Roads that should hum with movement lie still. Not because it is a public holiday. Not because the law demands it. But because fear has hardened into routine, and silence has become a survival strategy.
Every Monday, economic life is deliberately suspended. The question that must now be asked honestly, without romance or theatrics is simple. What is the real cost of the Monday stay-at-home, and who is paying it?
The original intent was political. Visibility was the aim. Disruption was the tool. Protest, in theory, is meant to impose costs on those in power. But over time, the cost structure of the Monday shutdown has inverted. Today, the Nigerian state does not bleed on Mondays in the South East. Ordinary people do.
Traders lose income. Transport workers lose fares. Artisans lose jobs. Daily wage earners lose food money. Students lose learning hours. Small businesses lose momentum. The woman who sells food by the roadside loses one day of income every week. The keke rider burns fuel without passengers. The private school teacher quietly forfeits pay. These losses are not dramatic. They are routine, cumulative, and relentless. One lost day a week may sound symbolic. It is not. It is arithmetic. One out of five working days erased is twenty percent of productive time gone every single week. Over a month, that is roughly four full working days lost. Over a year, it approaches fifty days of productivity wiped out. No economy absorbs that kind of repeated loss without long-term damage.
Even using a deliberately conservative estimate, if commercial activity across the South East would have generated just ¦ 5 billion on an average Monday, that translates to over ¦ 250 billion erased annually. And that figure excludes the deeper costs: stalled investments, jobs never created, businesses that close permanently, and confidence that never returns.
This is not abstract economics. It shows up in shops that shut and never reopen. In rising youth unemployment. In migration driven not by ambition, but by shrinking opportunity. It shows up in investors who quietly classify the region as high-risk and move on. Capital does not debate grievances. It does not wait for explanations. It simply avoids uncertainty.
Some will argue that sacrifice is the price of justice. That freedom has always demanded pain. That no cost is too high for dignity and self-determination. That argument deserves acknowledgment. History does not deny the role of sacrifice. But sacrifice must be strategic.
It must have a clear target, a defined objective, and visible progress. What exactly has the Monday shutdown achieved in its current form? Which policy has shifted because markets in Aba were closed? Which negotiation advanced because schools in Owerri were empty? Which centre of power has been financially pressured into reform?
A protest that steadily drains its own people while leaving power structures untouched is no longer leverage. It is containment.
Even more damaging is the reputational cost. The South East has historically been synonymous with commerce, ingenuity, and relentless enterprise. That image built over decades of resilience and risk-taking is slowly being replaced by one of instability and unpredictability. In a global economy where perception drives capital, this is not a minor inconvenience. It is a structural disadvantage.
There is also a quieter, deeper toll. A society that repeatedly rehearses fear learns caution. Children grow up watching normal life suspended not by disaster or weather, but by threat. Over time, people stop planning. They stop expanding. They stop trusting that effort reliably leads to reward. This is how ambition slowly retreats not with noise, but with exhaustion.
Hospitals run skeletal services. Schools idle. Shops remain shut. A region known for hustle is forced into stillness. When protest becomes coercive, it loses moral clarity. When silence is enforced, it stops being solidarity.