Following the nationwide protests, the Owerri capital of Imo state, on Thursday witnessed empty streets as humans and vehicular movements were scanty.

At the time of filing this report, shop owners at the Relief and Ekeukwu markets, closed their shops.

A visit to some locations in Owerri, witnessed that there were no business activities.

Transportation companies along Egbu road in Owerri were not left out as they also shut down their motor parks.

The situation was the same in the streets of Douglas, Wethedral, Okigwe, World bank, Aba road, Owerri-Port Harcourt road, Akwakuma, Amakohia Owerri-Onitsha road, Owerri-Umuahia road among others.

When some of the residents were asked the reason, according to a shop owner at Mbari street, Mr. Emeka Ibekwe, said: "With the kind of shooting that happened in Imo Tuesday and Wednesday no normal human being will be bold enough to come out and protest. You can see as I am sitting in the front of my house nothing is happening here. There is fear in the land."

While a resident of Relief market road, Mrs Becky Amadi, was of the opinion that; "All we are waiting for is for the situation to come down and in the evening we will come out and open our shops. We are not joining any protest. We want to do our business."

But a young man who introduced himself as Bath Emeadi, said his prepared to join the protests but blamed the ongoing early hours of rains as stopping protesters from coming to protests.

"You can see it is raining. It started early this morning and it is still raining. Let us wait when the rains stop we know whether to come out or not," he said.