Finnish authorities have arrested a Finnish-Nigerian citizen and pro-Biafran agitator, Mr. Simon Ekpa, who has threatened to unleash violence on the southeast during the conduct of Nigeria’s 2023 general election.
According to BBC, Ekpa, who leads a faction within the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) fighting for a breakaway state in Nigeria’s southeast, was arrested at his home on Thursday and taken to their facility for interrogation.
BBC quoted a leading newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, as saying that one of its reporters, who had gone to interview Ekpa, saw him being led out of his home by police.
Premium Times quoted Finland’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs. Leena Pylvänäinen, as confirming the arrest.
“Yes, it is our understanding, based on the news report by Helsingin Sanomat, that Mr. Ekpa was taken in for questioning earlier today from his home in Lahti,” Pylvänäinen said.
According to the paper, the ambassador said although the Finnish police do not, as a matter of principle, give out information on the identities of persons being questioned, the viral photograph of Ekpa being led by a team of Finnish police has been verified by Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish media outfit.
The factional leader of the outlawed IPOB has repeatedly declared sit-at-home orders across the southeast, insisting that there would be no election in the region in 2023.
He recently declared a sit-at-home from 23 to 28 February, apparently to stop the conduct of the 2023 general elections in the region.
The presidential and national assembly elections are slated to be held this Saturday, 25 February.
The Ebonyi State-born lawyer said the sit-at-home orders and stopping the 2023 elections in the region would help his faction of IPOB to achieve the sovereign state of Biafra for Igbo-speaking people in the south-east and south-south Nigeria.
In 2022, a BBC investigation identified Ekpa as one of the “media warriors” of IPOB, who were allegedly using social media to call for violence.
He had previously declared that his group was “in a revolution and visible state of war”.
He had also called for a five-day sit-at-home last December, warning that those who failed to comply should “blame” themselves “for whatsoever that happens” to them.
Ekpa came to national prominence after he announced on his Facebook page in 2021 that IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu had ordered him to assume the role of broadcaster on the group’s radio station, Radio Biafra.
