Detained
Simon Ekpa, the self-proclaimed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been arrested in Finland alongside four others on…
Simon Ekpa, the self-proclaimed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been arrested in Finland alongside four others on suspicion of terrorist activities, including inciting crimes with terrorist intent and financing terrorism. He was arrested on 21 November. Ekpa, a dual citizen of Nigeria and Finland, has been accused of using his social media platforms to promote violence and separatist propaganda in southeastern Nigeria. According to Finnish authorities, Ekpa’s online rhetoric has fueled attacks on civilians and government forces in Nigeria, and his activities have been coordinated from Finland with international cooperation. This marks his second arrest in Finland.
It appears that the Finnish government’s decision to arrest Ekpa may have had to do with pressures from concerned stakeholders in Nigeria’s Southeast, where the bulk of the Kanu-inspired and Ekpa-dominated separatist agitation for the old Eastern Region has held sway. The current iteration of violence led by the militant Eastern Security Network began with the arrest and detention of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu at the hands of Kenyan and Nigerian authorities in August 2021. Mr Kanu’s group instituted a weekly sit-at-home in the region to protest his detention–a directive they have had to forcefully implement given how their decline in popularity among the region’s residents in light of escalating violence by the group on not just government security forces but also on civilians, has led to the shutting down of business and social activities. On one hand, leaders in the region have ramped up pressure on the Tinubu administration to release Kanu to placate the violence. On the other hand–which is not so much at variance with the former–social media and the region’s leaders have also voiced concerns about Finland’s refusal to rein in Ekpa’s excesses. Mr Ekpa has been fingered as the staying power behind the violence despite the main IPOB group’s factionalisation. Ekpa leads the more hardline faction intent on using violence, a position which has alienated him from more moderate members such as Emma Powerful, among several others. Kanu himself, while speaking from detention, has condemned the violence, but that has not stopped Ekpa from receiving donations via online fundraising events–the proceeds which are in turn used to fund the violence unleashed by splinter factions such as the Biafra Liberation Army among others controlled by Ekpa. His latest arrest — he was arrested for suspected fraud in 2023 — might be markedly different from the past. This time, his charges were formally announced, and accomplices were also announced as being at large. This indicates that the Finnish authorities have something to make it stick. Since he is a Finnish citizen, the chances of extradition to Nigeria are limited, mainly because the Nigerian government has never officially requested his arrest or extradition. One significant fallout of his arrest is that continuous detention may starve the group of much-needed funds for operations. However, the chances that the violence in the Southeast will abate immediately appear small because, to all intents and purposes, no one person has all the levers of control over the armed groups operating in the region. For groups that can exist outside of the IPOB funding bubble, other avenues to create lifeblood, such as kidnap for ransom and gun-running, are actual channels which the Nigerian security forces are yet to rein in.