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Simon Ekpa, the self-acclaimed prime minister of the Biafra Government in Exile (BRGIE), intends to appeal the district court verdict he received for terrorism crimes, a local newspaper in Finland, Yle reports.
BRGIE is the auto pilot faction of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
IPOB is seeking the secession of five Southeastern abd some parts of South-south from Nigeria to actualize a sovereign state, Biafra.
Since 2021, Mr Elpa and his group have been linked to many deadly attacks in Nigeria’s South-east
Moves to appeal
Ekpa’s lawyer, Kaarle Gummerus, tells Yle that an expression of dissatisfaction with the verdict has been filed.
– The dissatisfaction concerns the entire verdict. We will begin preparing an appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The appeal must be submitted no later than October 1st.
The judgement
On September 1, the Päijät-Häme District Court sentenced Ekpa to six years in prison for inciting a public crime committed with terrorist intent and participating in the activities of a terrorist group.
In addition, Ekpa was convicted of aggravated tax fraud and violating the provisions of the Attorneys Act.
The district court found that Ekpa sought to promote the independence of the Biafra region in southeastern Nigeria through illegal means between August 2021 and November 2024.
According to the district court, Ekpa took advantage of the confusion in the central Nigerian separatist movement to assume a prominent role in it. Ekpa was considered, together with others, to have founded and developed the activities of the separatist movement into an increasingly organized form.
The movement also established armed groups, which the district court deemed terrorist groups.
According to the verdict, Ekpa supplied the groups with weapons, explosives, and ammunition through his network of contacts. He was also found to have urged and enticed followers of his X account to commit crimes in Nigeria.
The judgment states that Ekpa has had a maximum of approximately 179,000 followers on his X account. All of his X messages have been viewed 226 million times and have been reacted to or shared more than 20 million times. The District Court estimates that the messages have actually reached a significantly larger number of people because they have been published further.
The Nigerian government had since welcomed the Finnish court judgment.
Denials
Simon Ekpa denied the charges in the district court. He claimed, among other things, that he had not written his posts on the messaging service X himself. However, the district court found that most of the posts were written in the “I” or “we” form, and the posts included Ekpa’s name and pictures of him.
In a message that Ekpa posted on his account in July 2024, he refers to the Kalevala with the phrase “Our revenge must be like that of Kullervo.” The District Court found that this indicated that Ekpa, a long-time resident of Finland and a Finnish citizen, had been composing the messages. Therefore, the District Court did not find it credible that someone else had written all the messages.
Ekpa originally arrived in Finland from Nigeria as an athlete in 2007
.Ekpa has been a representative of the National Coalition Party on the Lahti Public Transport Board
Considering more years in prison for Ekpa
Deputy Prosecutor General Jukka Rappe believes it is good that the District Court has thoroughly weighed the evidence.
According to Rappe, terrorist crimes are rare in Finland. The Ekpa case is even more exceptional because, although the place of commission was Finland, the crimes were committed abroad.
Rappe says he is still considering whether to appeal the district court’s verdict. According to the deputy prosecutor, the main issue is whether the punishment is sufficient.
