Daniel Otera
On September 1, 2025, the Päijät-Häme District Court in Lahti, Finland, unanimously sentenced 40-year-old Nigerian-born Finnish citizen Simon Ekpa to six years in prison for terrorism-related offenses, aggravated tax fraud, and violations of Finland’s Lawyers Act. The 12-session trial, held from May 30 to June 25, 2025, marks a pivotal moment in addressing online incitement of violence, particularly in Nigeria’s volatile Southeast, where Ekpa’s actions fueled separatist unrest from 2021 to 2024. As the self-proclaimed “Prime Minister” of the Biafra Republic Government in Exile (BRGIE), Ekpa exploited social media, notably X, to orchestrate armed groups and destabilize Nigeria’s Igbo heartland.
Court documents, as reported by BBC News Pidgin reveal Ekpa’s actions went beyond rhetoric. The three-judge panel found he founded and structured BRGIE, arming separatist groups classified as terrorist organizations under Finnish law with weapons, explosives, and ammunition through his network.
“He used social media to gain a politically influential position and exploited divisions within Nigeria’s separatist movements,” the court stated, per Yle. His X posts, which prosecutors described as voluminous, incited followers to commit crimes in Nigeria, including attacks on security forces.
Ekpa’s defense, led by lawyer Kaarle Gummerus, argued that evidence from Nigerian authorities was politically motivated, citing tensions over Ekpa’s Finnish citizenship. They claimed his actions were protected speech.
The court rejected this, affirming jurisdiction since the offenses incitement and participation in a terrorist group occurred on Finnish soil. Additional convictions for tax fraud, uncovered by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and illegal legal services further compounded his sentence. Ekpa’s assets, alongside those of associates and related companies, remain frozen since November 2024.
Born March 21, 1985, in Ohaukwu, Ebonyi State, Nigeria, Ekpa moved to Finland in 2007 on an athletic scholarship after winning silver in the 100m at the 2003 African Junior Championships. A knee injury ended his sports career, but he integrated into Finnish society, gaining citizenship, serving in the Finnish Army (2013), and becoming a Lahti municipal councillor (2017–2021) for the National Coalition Party. His activism for Biafran independence, rooted in the 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War’s devastation (500,000–3 million deaths, per Britannica), escalated after joining the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in 2021.
Dismissed from IPOB’s Radio Biafra for rule violations, Ekpa formed the “Autopilot” faction and declared BRGIE’s “full activation” in August 2022, styling himself its leader by April 2023. From Finland, he issued “sit-at-home” orders weekly shutdowns in Nigeria’s Southeast to protest IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu’s detention. Initially non-violent under IPOB, these became coercive under Ekpa, enforced by “unknown gunmen.”
Ekpa’s agitation was not limited to fiery broadcasts. The economic toll of his separatist directives was staggering. A 2025 report by SBM Intelligence estimated that recurring “sit-at-home” orders in the Southeast had cost the region nearly ₦7.6 trillion in lost revenue between 2021 and 2023, with transport operators alone losing about ₦13 billion daily. The restrictions, initially conceived as peaceful protests, were increasingly enforced by armed groups, turning marketplaces and transport hubs into ghost towns.
In August 2024, Ekpa escalated his tactics, announcing via his X account a 30-day lockdown of government institutions across the five Southeastern states from 28 August to 26 September. He framed the shutdown as a protest against the continued detention of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, but the order deepened fear and economic paralysis across the region. Earlier, a 2023 video in which he described violent resistance as “self-defence” circulated widely online, drawing more than 800,000 views and highlighting the reach of his digital propaganda.
Ekpa also attempted to give his movement a veneer of legitimacy through what he called a “self-referendum” on Biafran independence. In July 2024, he claimed that more than 49 million people had voted online, a figure impossible to verify and exceeding Nigeria’s official voter turnout in the 2023 presidential election. He later announced that a declaration of Biafra’s sovereignty would take place on 2 December 2024. That plan was disrupted when Finnish authorities, acting on an investigation into terrorism financing and incitement, arrested him on 21 November 2024, halting the declaration and freezing the assets of his associates.
Ekpa’s influence, through the Biafra Liberation Army (BLA), was linked to attacks, including the killing of four police officers in Imo State in July 2024. ACLED data records over 200 separatist attacks from 2021–2024, contributing to 1,000+ deaths. A local trader in Onitsha, Chika Okeke, told Premium Times: “We live in fear. Sit-at-home orders shut our markets, and gunmen threaten anyone who opens shop.” A 2023 Afrobarometer survey found 40% of Southeast residents support secession, up from 25% in 2018, driven by marginalization of fewer states (five vs. others’ six or more), underinvestment, and post-war exclusion.
Nigeria’s position in the fight against terrorism reflects both progress and renewed challenges. The 2024 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) ranked the country sixth worldwide, with a score of 7.658, up from eighth place in the two preceding years. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, Nigeria recorded 565 terrorism-related deaths in 2024, compared with 533 in 2023 and 392 in 2022, the lowest figure since 2011. Despite this increase in fatalities, the total number of incidents fell to 99 in 2024, the fewest since 2014.
The figures illustrate a reversal of earlier gains, when Nigeria’s death toll from terrorism dropped sharply from the 2014 peak of 2,101 deaths. In the northeast, recent reports indicate a resurgence of Boko Haram and ISWAP attacks, including assaults on military bases and civilians in early 2025. Violence has also persisted in the southeast, where IPOB-linked groups have carried out deadly attacks such as the May 2022 killings in Anambra State, in which 14 civilians, including women and children, lost their lives.
The NBI’s investigation, in collaboration with Nigerian authorities, led to Ekpa’s arrest alongside four others (later cleared) for terrorism financing. Nigeria’s government hailed the verdict.
Minister of Information Mohammed Idris posted on X: “A major victory for the Nigerian people in the collective fight against terror.” General Christopher Musa added: “There is no safe haven for those who sponsor terror against Nigeria.”
The ruling strengthens Nigeria-Finland ties, strained by Ekpa’s activities, and aligns with EU-Africa counter-terrorism partnerships, per a 2024 Europol report on online radicalization.
Finland’s Criminal Code (Chapter 34a) prescribes 4–12 years for terrorism-related crimes, and Ekpa’s incitement qualifies as participation. Comparable cases, like the 2019 UK conviction of Anjem Choudary for online incitement, underscore the verdict’s precedent for digital-age terrorism. Ekpa can appeal to the Turku Court of Appeal, potentially reaching the Supreme Court, but the robust evidence online broadcasts and communications makes success unlikely. He remains in custody, with pre-trial detention credited.
While IPOB disavowed Ekpa as a “destructive agent,” his violence tarnished the Biafran cause, which sought a non-violent referendum. A 2022 International Crisis Group The report estimates $10–20 million in annual diaspora funding to separatists, which Ekpa’s conviction may deter.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe argues: “Violence overshadows our legitimate grievances. Releasing Kanu could restore dialogue.”
The verdict highlights the digital-age challenge: while Biafra’s grievances rooted in the Civil War and ongoing inequities persist, unchecked online agitation can escalate to terror.
For Southeast residents, the ruling offers hope amid ₦5 trillion in losses. For agitators, it’s a caution: as Idris urged, “Nigeria is big enough for all, but progress cannot thrive where violence prevails.”