Barrister Ifeanyi Ejiofor has said the current sit-at-home protest in the Southeast is a criminal resurrection of a dead directive, hijacked, grotesquely distorted, and violently enforced by lawless elements, ably led by incarcerated Simon Ekpa.

This was as he urged security operatives to target those who go about enforcing the sit-at-home via violence.

He said when the sit-at-home started in the region, it was a political protest ordered by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) against the arrest and detention of now-jailed leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

Ejiofor, however, pointed out that the order has since been cancelled by IPOB.

Ehiofor, who served as counsel to Kanu, said this in a statement in reaction to the declaration by the Anambra State Government that the Onitsha Market will be closed down for a month if traders continue to obey the cancelled sit-at-home order.

He said, "My position on the so-called Monday sit-at-home has been unambiguous, consistent, and a matter of public record from the very outset.

"For the avoidance of doubt, and for the benefit of those who persist in convenient amnesia, the sit-at-home was formally, expressly, and unequivocally cancelled by the global peaceful movement - Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). That cancellation was neither implied nor tentative; it was categorical. From that moment, the directive ceased to exist in law, in logic, and in moral persuasion.

"What followed thereafter was not civil disobedience, not political protest, and certainly not ideological resistance. What followed was a criminal resurrection of a dead directive, hijacked, grotesquely distorted, and violently enforced by lawless elements, ably led by Simon Ekpa , who thrive not on principle but on fear, extortion, and bloodletting.

"It bears repeating: this violence is not a continuation of any IPOB policy. It is a parasitic enterprise, feeding off intimidation, coercion, and the deliberate manufacture of terror among innocent citizens."

Ejiofor revealed that he had consistently maintained that the continued “enforcement” of a directive that no longer exists, kept alive solely through threats, rests on no ideological premise, no legal footing, and certainly no moral authority.

"It is against this backdrop that the decision to shut down the Onitsha Main Market must be interrogated with sobriety, proportionality, and an unflinching fidelity to the rule of law. Collective punishment of traders and law-abiding citizens, who are themselves hostages of fear, cannot, and must not, masquerade as security policy. It is neither strategic nor just.

"Security governance, if it is to deserve the name, must be precise, intelligence-driven, and squarely targeted at the actual architects and executors of violence. To shutter an entire economic nerve centre in response to criminal threats is to punish productivity while emboldening lawlessness.

"Any response that collapses the distinction between criminality and commerce risks achieving the perverse: legitimising the tactics of violent actors while penalising innocent enterprise.

"My position, therefore, remains firmly and irrevocably unchanged:

"The Monday sit-at-home enjoys no legitimacy, commands no authority, and possesses no justification whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise," the lawyer said.

ASA