National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Pro-Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa, has been sentenced to six years imprisonment by the Päijät-Häme District Court in Finland.
The court, in a ruling delivered on Monday, found Ekpa guilty of inciting terrorism and participating in the activities of a terrorist organisation.
According to Yle, a Finnish newspaper, the judges said he used his “significant social media following” to fuel violence and unrest in Nigeria’s South-East between August 2021 and November 2024.
The three-member panel of judges, ruling unanimously, described Ekpa as an influential member of a militant separatist movement seeking the creation of a Biafra state from Nigeria. The court also established that he had supplied groups with weapons, explosives, and ammunition “through his network of contacts in the region,” and had encouraged his followers on social media platform X to commit crimes in Nigeria.
Beyond the terrorism charges, Ekpa was further convicted of aggravated tax fraud and violations of the Attorneys Act.
A known ally of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Ekpa once described himself as Kanu’s disciple. Following Kanu’s extradition to Nigeria from Kenya in June 2021, Ekpa was appointed lead broadcaster of Radio Biafra but was dismissed weeks later after failing to sign the station’s rules of engagement.
The fallout led him to form a splinter separatist group, from where he issued sit-at-home directives in the South-East and frequently called for attacks on security operatives. IPOB, however, repeatedly disowned his actions.
Ekpa was arrested by Finnish authorities in November 2024 and charged with spreading terrorist propaganda online. By March 2025, the Nigerian federal government officially designated him a “terrorism financier.”
