By Mazi Chinonso Uba Nonsonkwa
The Looting of over 70 shops at the Toronto Junction Market in Owerri North LGA of Imo state by touts employed by Imo Entraco on the 24th Day of October 2025 was the height of Wickedness and criminality by a government agency since the creation of Imo state in 1976.
Imo Entraco, whose responsibility was to ensure a clean environment and prevent obstructions on our roads, turned against poor Market Women at the Toronto Junction Market at about 5:45 pm on Frida,y 24th October 2025, breaking and looting shops, as well as stealing over eight hundred thousand naira cash from poor market Women, most of whom are widows struggling to make ends meet.
These touts didn’t stop at that, they went further to steal some motorcycles whose owners were either eating in restaurants or parked in a mechanic workshop around the market. Over 40 POS machines were carted away by these official hoodlums, and monies belonging to the POS machine owners were forcefully taken. Goods carted away are estimated to be over 50 Million, with Phones ranging from iPhone, Samsung, Oppo, Techno, Infinix, etc, looted, including sewing machines, Smart Televisions, fans, electronics of all kinds, bags of leather and rubber shoes, bags of clothes, aluminium doors and windows were also criminally looted by these marauders.
Foodstuffs looted are uncountable, as bags of rice, Crayfish, Garri, beans, Crates of Eggs, Gallons of vegetable oil and red oil, cartons of Noodles, cartons of fresh and dry fish, etc, were also stolen.
It was not just a broad day robbery but an action backed by the government.
The bone of contention stems from a businessman who built another market along that same axis and used government influence to force the traders to relocate.
The pathetic role of the chairman of Owerri North LGA, Mr Lucky Abaraony, remains horrible and anti-people to say the least. The silence of the Chairman clearly indicated his complicity in the whole quagmire.
The poorly constructed defence by the local government chairman that the said market, where the traders were asked to relocate to, is a government market shows how low in integrity and character the chairman is.
To be clear, the Special Adviser to the said Chairman, one Ken Anoruo, failed to provide documented or paper evidence that the said market belongs to the government. Rather than do the needful, they resorted to cheap blackmail and name-dropping typical of the APC government.
As the atrocity of Imo Entraco was still raging, the same Imo Entraco came back with more Wickedness and Heartlessness on Thursday 30th of October 2025, demolishing all shops which they suddenly tagged ” shanties”.
And three persons were shot, and one was fatally wounded . The trio are currently at the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri.
To be clear, Toronto Junction Market is a village market in Uratta. The market posed no obstruction or danger to vehicular or human movement. Imo, Entraco, it satisfies the individual, destroying the livelihood of over two thousand families in a few minutes. Imo, Entraco turned herself into a weapon against the people because of an individual who wanted to show he had the government under his thumb.
It was a sad day for families whose sources of survival were destroyed because of greed and avarice.
Most traders whose shops and goods were demolished, especially the poor old women, borrowed money from micro-finance banks to stock their shops. No, both their shops and goods are gone courtesy of Imo Entraco.
To this end, Nchekwa Ndi Ogbenye Foundation, A Human Rights organisation recognised locally and internationally, has fully taken up the matter on behalf of the over seventy shop owners at the Toronto Junction Market.
For looting over seventy shops at the Toronto Junction Market ;
For vindictively demolishing shops at the Toronto Junction Market ;
For shooting and wounding three persons who were in their houses on the day of the wicked demolition;
The organisation shall be dragging the Imo State Government, Imo State Governor, Imo Entraco, GM Imo Entraco, SA to the Governor on Monitoring and Implementation, Commissioner of Commerce, Commissioner of Environment, and other related government agencies to court.
We shall be asking the court to interpret the exact duties of Imo Entraco Law as enacted in 2008;
The place of Uratta ( Toronto) under the Imo Entraco law as enacted;
The legality or illegality of the looting and demolition under the said law, as well as the shooting of innocent people.
We shall seek full compensation for every good looted, every shop demolished by Imo Government, through Imo Entraco, as well as the three persons shot at the market by Imo Entraco security men.
Nchekwa Ndi Ogbenye Foundation will pursue this matter to its logical conclusion!!!
No one has the right to deprive another of his or her means of livelihood, not the government, not an individual.
We therefore ask every legal practitioner who is touched by this Wickedness to join this suit for the sake of those poor women, most of whom are currently battling High Blood Pressure and Depression!
In conclusion, we shall forward a detailed account of Imo Entraco’s evil act to the Human Rights Office of the United Nations, Amnesty International, International Human Rights Organisation, and other International Human Rights Bodies…
Injury to One is injury to All…
Mazi Chinonso Uba Nonsonkwa
( EZIOKWUATUEGWU NKE IZIZI NA STEETI IMO)
President
Nchekwa Ndi Ogbenye Foundation
October 31st 2025
