Issues over the imprisonment of Simon Ekpa in Finland, by Ayuba Ahmad
Penultimate Monday, 1st September, 2025, a court in the Nordic nation of Finland handed a six-year jail term for Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian-Finnish national, over terrorism-related crimes. He was further found guilty by the three trial judges of the crime of aggravated tax fraud.
According to prosecutors, the self-styled “Prime Minister of the Biafran Republic in Exile” had engaged in terrorist activities by “using his significant social media following” to stoke tensions and violence in the Southeast region of Nigeria, between 2021 and 2024. He was also found guilty of using his network of contacts and clandestine channels to fund and equip armed groups with weapons, explosives and other instruments of perpetuating violence.
Simon Ekpa had been on the Nigerian government Sanctions List since March, 2025. The Sanctions List imposes sanctions on individuals and organisations linked to terror-related activities, in line with Section 54 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act of 2022.
Within the three years of his operation, the forty-year-old Simon Ekpa unleashed torrents of terror on the entire Southeast landscape through a meshwork of bands of armed groups. Menacing and ruthless in their conduct, the groups known as “Unknown Gunmen” among other names, carried out acts of torture, murders, kidnappings, extortions and arson, with amazing impunity.
READ ALSO: Finnish court sentences Simon Ekpa to 6 years in prison on terrorism charges
The armed groups carried out the atrocious orders and commands issued by Simon Ekpa from his comfort base in faraway Finland. One of such orders was demanding that all citizens in the region sit at home every Monday. Despite the catastrophic impacts it was wreaking on their social and economic lives, the people were largely compelled to comply with the weekly sit-at-home order. Those who failed to comply were subjected to various forms of punishments that included physical torture, payment of fines, looting of shops, torching of business premises and death through gory execution in several instances.
Brazenly audacious on account of their sophisticated weapons, their indoctrination and material motivation and the influence of substances, the Ekpa’s foot soldiers in their brigandage, frequently confronted and engaged in battles with security agents. Not a few military and police personnel paid the supreme price or were wounded as a result of such encounters.
Not surprisingly, the Southeast region started to experience relative peace and security with the arrest and commencement of the trial of Simon Ekpa. His eventual conviction elicited a spontaneous celebration across the region, with many hitherto silent onlookers finding their voices.
Describing the jailing of Simon Ekpa as a “landmark victory”, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo noted that the development has “significantly reduced the influence of terrorism and insecurity in the Southeast, leading to the cessation of the disruptive sit-at-home orders previously enforced by Ekpa.”
Describing the action as “a significant step in the global fight against terrorism”, Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa stated that the conviction of Ekpa was the culmination of the collaborative efforts between the security and intelligence agencies in Nigeria and Finland.
With the development, Finland has shown that not all countries in the Western world, are willing to serve as safe havens for terrorists, renegades and fugitives from developing countries. With the Finish country, it should be crystal clear to the likes of Simon Ekpa, that one cannot hide behind the dubious veneer of its “citizenship” as a protective shield for the perpetuation of terrorism and insurgency in other countries.
READ ALSO: FG freezes bank accounts of Simon Ekpa, 16 others for terrorism
It is pertinent to note that the Finnish position is at great variance with Britain, which, under the innocuous excuse of British citizenship, had for several years, provided Nnamdi Kanu the safe havens and the ground for carrying out his campaign of terrorism and insurrection in Nigeria through his IPOB.
Countries of the world will do well to emulate the example of Finland by adopting the policy of not harbouring terrorists and related violent criminals who are fugitives from justice in their own countries of origin.
Very significantly, Nigeria will do well to borrow a leaf from the Finnish judicial process of expeditious dispensation of justice, as it was demonstrated in the trial of Simon Ekpa. While, for example, the Nigerian judiciary has been dithering for over two years in a similar case of terrorism against Nnamdi Kanu, the entire gamut of the arraignment, prosecution and conviction of Ekpa barely spanned two months. And that was accomplished, with justice transparently seen to have been done.
With his conviction, spokespersons of IPOB have gone to town with the rhetoric that Simon Ekpa, and not Nnamdi Kanu, was singularly responsible for all the acts of violence and terrorism committed all these years in the Southeast region of the country. According to a leading light of IPOB, Emma Powerful, Nnamdi Kanu could be passed for a pacifist who has all along, embarked on peaceful and constitutional channels in his struggle for the actualisation of an independent nation of Biafra.”
The nation’s security agencies, on the other hand, vehemently contend that Kanu and his IPOB cannot be exonerated from the reign of terror that has been ravaging the Southeast in the name of the struggle for the state of Biafra for more than a decade. And, until the courts prove otherwise, the generality of citizens agreed with the security agencies that Nnamdi Kanu and Simon Ekpa are two sides of a coin who merely disagreed on the question of leadership and modalities on the project of armed insurrection against the Nigerian state in their shared dreams and quest for Biafra.
We at the Neptune Prime commend the security agencies, the judiciary and the government of Finland for the arrest, prosecution and conviction of an individual who, for three years, deployed his enormous resources and connections to trigger a virulent scourge of terror in the form of social and economic destabilisation, violence and deaths on a hapless people. It is our hope that other developed nations will emulate the Finnish exemplary policy of enhancing peace, security and stability in poverty-stricken and often, war-ravaged developing countries.
We greatly rejoice with our compatriots in the Southeast region over the development. We are on the same page with the Ohanaeze Ndigbo in the hope that the incarceration of Ekpa would lead to de-escalating terrorism and general insecurity in the zone. We wish, as does the Ohanaeze, that the excitement all over the region over the caging of Simon Ekpa, “underscores the Igbo people’s resolute opposition to armed struggle under the guise of Biafra agitation.”
We similarly share the view of General Christopher Musa that the nation’s judiciary needs to enthrone the practice of speedy dispensation of justice. There is no doubting the fact that the prevailing practice of delaying the conclusion of critical cases by the courts has contributed to the culture of impunity and lowering of citizens’ confidence in the justice system.
READ ALSO: Letter threatening to arrest Simon Ekpa for international terrorism fake – Finnish official
In the particular context of violence and insecurity in the Southeast, we are calling on the judiciary to, without compromising the sanctity of human rights and the rule of law, expedite the conclusion of the case of Nnamdi Kanu. The recent judgment delivered in Finland on the case of Ekpa has brought to the fore the imperative for the timely termination of the trial of Kanu.
We are in absolute agreement with the Igbo leadership’s “advocacy for rehabilitation and youth empowerment programmes for repentant individuals.” We believe that if diligently handled, as was seen in the case of the militants in the Niger Delta, this strategy can lead to the depletion of the population of the huge army of unemployed youths from which agent provocateurs recruit their foot soldiers. A major snag is that the Southeast is not the only region needing such a remedial social engineering.
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